Facebook user totals?
When Facebook launched its IPO the figure of 1 billion users worldwide was mentioned. Based on SEC rules, it is certain that the figure is roughly correct as a number of those subscribed. The question though is what is a user.
I am not an avid Facebook user and only rarely post anything, maybe once a month or a few more times. There are times when I check in on Facebook daily for a quick look at photos of babies, children, pets, and at times some real adult friends, and quite a few times for a few laughs from some and some thoughtful comments from others. There are other periods when I may not check in on Facebook for a week or more. Whenever I do, I at times check a "like" or add a comment or two to some posts.
There are 83 folks now on my "friends" list(a couple have been added in recent months but I was excommunicated("defriended") by quite a few when after much back and forth consideration I finally decided to support Obama(or more explicitly not support Romney) - lesson - politics are really too serious for Facebook). The majority of my "friends" rarely post at all, even less than me. A minority of maybe 20 are active posters. Some keep the site interesting, informative, or humorous. Another 20 users post at my pace, just occasionally posting or making comments. The remaining half basically never post or comment. Maybe they just follow this site, or maybe they signed up at some point and have never looked again.
That gets to the point of this write-up. What is a "user" and how many does Facebook really have?
I guess only Facebook would have these stats, and they are a key to understanding the value of this company.
This reminds me of a past experience when I was well aware of the credit card businesses of the first two named banks that I represented. At the time there was competition among all of the major card issuers to promote or brag about how many customers they had. Included in the numbers the banks promoted were many dormant accounts, cards that were issued but never used by their owners. People tended at that time to accumulate more cards than they used, often to get that 20% discount on some store purchase and then never use the card again. In other words, a significant percentage of the card customers promoted by these banks were essentially bogus because they were hidden in some drawer and never used.
For banks, since actually money borrowed was easy to calculate, this number was accessible internally. As a comparison to Facebook, the usage numbers are not so accessible, probably even to the company. On second thought, Facebook obviously has an immense amount of information. They just don't yet seem to have a way to benefit from it as a public company. They almost definitely will at some point, but now they seem clumsy.
But the question remains for me. How many active users are there of Facebook as opposed to those who have signed up, hardly ever use it, or have packed it in?
I am not an avid Facebook user and only rarely post anything, maybe once a month or a few more times. There are times when I check in on Facebook daily for a quick look at photos of babies, children, pets, and at times some real adult friends, and quite a few times for a few laughs from some and some thoughtful comments from others. There are other periods when I may not check in on Facebook for a week or more. Whenever I do, I at times check a "like" or add a comment or two to some posts.
There are 83 folks now on my "friends" list(a couple have been added in recent months but I was excommunicated("defriended") by quite a few when after much back and forth consideration I finally decided to support Obama(or more explicitly not support Romney) - lesson - politics are really too serious for Facebook). The majority of my "friends" rarely post at all, even less than me. A minority of maybe 20 are active posters. Some keep the site interesting, informative, or humorous. Another 20 users post at my pace, just occasionally posting or making comments. The remaining half basically never post or comment. Maybe they just follow this site, or maybe they signed up at some point and have never looked again.
That gets to the point of this write-up. What is a "user" and how many does Facebook really have?
I guess only Facebook would have these stats, and they are a key to understanding the value of this company.
This reminds me of a past experience when I was well aware of the credit card businesses of the first two named banks that I represented. At the time there was competition among all of the major card issuers to promote or brag about how many customers they had. Included in the numbers the banks promoted were many dormant accounts, cards that were issued but never used by their owners. People tended at that time to accumulate more cards than they used, often to get that 20% discount on some store purchase and then never use the card again. In other words, a significant percentage of the card customers promoted by these banks were essentially bogus because they were hidden in some drawer and never used.
For banks, since actually money borrowed was easy to calculate, this number was accessible internally. As a comparison to Facebook, the usage numbers are not so accessible, probably even to the company. On second thought, Facebook obviously has an immense amount of information. They just don't yet seem to have a way to benefit from it as a public company. They almost definitely will at some point, but now they seem clumsy.
But the question remains for me. How many active users are there of Facebook as opposed to those who have signed up, hardly ever use it, or have packed it in?
posted by John Borden at 12:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home