Facebook decline

the world’s largest social network has lost 6m US visitors, a 4% fall, according to analysis firm SocialBakers. In the UK, 1.4m fewer users checked in last month, a fall of 4.5%. The declines are sustained. In the last six months, Facebook has lost nearly 9m monthly visitors in the US and 2m in the UK.

via Facebook loses millions of users as biggest markets peak | Technology | The Guardian.

I have to agree not because I have access to more statistics but I can observe statistics in my own timeline. From few hundred people that I follow from across the world, the individual usage has dropped. These people are not celebrities but average Facebook users.

My timeline for the most part is filled with updates on pages and other celebrity stars (mostly in the tech world). My friends are not logging onto Facebook as much or as often. The common word I hear from the lot is “we are bored!” and “there is nothing new to check..”. Same as the study, I am finding more sharing activities from my Indian friends compared to those from US, UK and Australia.

I am finding that less updates from friends also means less interactions and hence less time spend on Facebook – and this is not a bad thing at all.

 

A VC: Online Learning and Higher Ed

There is no question that putting all of these lectures and knowledge online is going to change things. But I am also a big fan of what happens when a teacher and a small group of students get together in a classroom and real personal interaction happens.

via A VC: Online Learning and Higher Ed.

A challenge to solve would be to increase collaboration and connectivity between participants taking a course and make it as frictionless as possible. The mature age learners could learn more from the smart interactions and collaborations which crosses cultural and physical barriers.

Facebook Home and Privacy

Om Malik is concerned about user privacy when people start using Facebook Home.

But there is a bigger worry. The phone’s GPS can send constant information back to the Facebook servers, telling it your whereabouts at any time.

One simple answer – don’t use the app, end of the story.

But isn’t services like Facebook, Twitter gathering a lot of information on us using other means as well such as phone apps, their web services etc.? These services would have enough information on where I go, the most places from where I update my status, take photos, tag people etc.

We may be giving away our privacy (oh how the meaning of privacy has changed over the decades) but we are gaining benefits from that as well. The information that I get from web services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter is more contextual and more relevant.

Needing Validations

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Yes, validations are necessary and important but more so when one is producing, creating, innovating stuff. Don’t spend all the time just getting validations (and likes) on the things that don’t matter.