I almost forgot about this: back when MySpace was king, the user profile page was something to the effect of MySpace.com/profile=0022447<p>I was trying to judge active users so I used a script to visit each profile I'd URL and check the "last logged in" date that was a part of everyone's default profile.<p>(this was 2006 or 2007 so I'm fuzzy on exacts) the MAU was around 49% of what MySpace was claiming at th time. So many accounts hadn't logged in in at least 6 months.<p>I don't have he data files any longer, but I was using it to plot the actives...
I call bull. Spam accounts are rampant. Based on my personal experience, people are beginning to leave. Roughly 20% of my personal friends have left in the last 6 months for varying reasons. I know I am one datapoint, but without hard statistics from FB servers it's the best I have.
No doubt it's large, but how many are spam accounts? How many are multiple account holders? How's it measured? Does a simple like button click count as an activity?
I remember reading that Facebook counts anyone who clicks a like button on any website as being an active user which is certainly b.s. If you can't serve someone an ad (and that's your primary revenue stream), they aren't an active user.<p>Plus, they almost certainly count public page views to Facebook (like the link above), which means every new non-logged in session gets counted as a new user. It is totally valid in my opinion to count these, but they are hyper-inflationary.
The next 1 billion will be really challenging, there are developing countries like Africa, countries where there are conflicts like Afghanistan, and countries like Myanmar where corruptions are really high, where infrastructure such as internet and telcoms are still treated as luxury products, if they can enter those barriers, the impact will be really big. Nevertheless, I salute Mark for getting this far.
This astronomical user-base begs the question: why aren't you the most profitable company on the planet right now? You have the users, the money, the connections and the engineering talent. So what's the problem?
It's interesting to see the average number of friends from 2006 to present has decreased to around 300 (The last reported number was 305 in 2010 so it could even be under 300 in 2012).<p>Maybe Facebook users are being more self ware (privacy conscious) of who they add as a "friend"?
I used to have an account on FB but I closed it and it's unlikely I'm going back.
I did create a company page.
I'm on Twitter and I'm giving G+ another go for the third time.
iCloud looks interesting and could be a major threat to FB because I set up a bunch of pages for family just so they could see their grandchildren.
They're on FB for no other reason so iCloud definitely has some potential there.
I'm also more engaged with the Twitter ads than I ever was with the ads on FB, those ads never interested me. I fully expect FB to copy Twitter's ad model.
I clicked through one of my sister's posts from an email the other day. It had been a while. I saw a funny graphic on Facebook.<p>Right after that, Facebook sent me an email. Subject: "Welcome back to Facebook."<p>Apparently I'm a reengaged monthly active user!
i got only about 60 friends on facebook cause i dont wanne have every idiot i seen once on my "friendslist"
(yeah i know i can group them blabla... google plus has it right)<p>iam so under average \o/