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Facebook - Do you use it?

48 posts & 39 voices | Started 1 year ago by Spongebob | Latest reply from breakneckspeed

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Don Simon = AWESOME

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Spongebob - Member

It's in the news today. Apparently, some think the company is worth £32Bn!?!?

They get £1.2Bn a year from advertising.

I always thought a tangible company was worth roughly five times it's turnover, but i might be somewhat off the mark. The value of anything is determined by the price the buyer is willing to pay.

I have looked on FB and have registered there, but I have only visited the site a handful of times. I really don't see what the attraction is, but there are significant issues relating to personal security. I do know that it's become a forum for bullying and it wouldn't surprize me of the site got regulated in some way. To me, it's like a better version of Friends Reunited, but that wasn't much cop anyway. It's a site used a lot by school children. Advertisers like to hook 'em in young!

There was some sort of expert on the telly telling us that Facebook has now become the main portal for the internet - Bullshit!

It's Google, by a country mile!

I fear that a lot of investors will get their fingers burned if they by stocks when the company eventually floats (which will include firms investing your pension fund).

Again, it's a greedy bank and a Russian billionaire behind this whole charade.

The only winners will be the Facebook founders!

Posted 1 year ago #
cp - Member

it may be google for you, but I reckon facebook is the homepage & main use of the internet for millions.

Posted 1 year ago #
rkk01 - Member

Previously have wondered what all the fuss is about, but admit to having been swayed over the holiday period and keeping in contact with friends / relatives who are further away (combined with skype).

Can't quite work out the business model though...? Presumably all the revenue is from advertising (and the Govt payments for data mining....)

Posted 1 year ago #
Trimix - Member

Investors are always looking for the next best thing - so given it rate of growth and the fact that so many people use it they see potential, not the same as actual revenue.

People are expecting our access to things on the web will change, so some are willing to invest now in things that may be the portal for that sort of thing.

I dont use it, but some do 24/7. But we all use STW just as much. If your hobby was posting pictures of you pissed at a party or telling everyone what your doing all the time you may use FB a lot.

Posted 1 year ago #
mos - Member

a friend at work is on there, so we did a search for my nephew & then tried to find some pics of his mega-boobed teenage girlfriend, but couldn't get anything, so it is obviously useless.

Posted 1 year ago #
scruff - Member

I fear that a lot of investors will get their fingers burned

Posted 1 year ago #
Trimix - Member

I see it changing more and more to suit business. Even good old STW has some link to FB.

Posted 1 year ago #
TheBrick - Member

marketing mans wet dream

Posted 1 year ago #
Taff - Member

I use it far too much....

Posted 1 year ago #
joeydeacon - Member

Personally I think it's f****d. Myspace was overpriced, and was sold at around about it's peak - the main problem with Myspace was that it allowed users to design their own profiles, and had no real aggregation system, thus rendering it annoying and unusable after people got over the initial fad of social networking. Poor old Murdoch.

Similarly with facebook, it has (in my opinion), become less and less appealing to stay in contact and receive regular updates from people you drifted apart from years ago. I closed down my FB account a couple of years ago, and many friends have done the same since - the novelty has worn off, and if anything has become annoying. I care what my real friends are up to, couldn't give a s*** about people I no longer know.

The way in which FB has brought in new features, such as relationship anniversarys, add your siblings etc etc are desperate attempts to increase interactivity between users - people are not interacting anything like they used to compared to when they first signed up as the novelty factor has gone.

I did read somewhere that it's never ever made a profit - can anyone clarify?

Posted 1 year ago #
frogger - Member

With 550+ million of registered users it is the main portal for many people. It's not just kids either though it is largely a younger audience. It's mind blowing when you get behind the data of how people are using it. My company tracks social media closely and I see things every day that surprises me. There is a significant shift in how the new generation interact with the web. My 17yr old niece doesn't have an email account and doesn't want one, everything she buys has been recommended to her by her 'friends' on facebook. She only now uses Google because she has to, not because she wants to and only uses it as a last resort. Younger people also have much less of a need to keep themselves private and happily give away tons of info about themselves online. Us older fogies find that scary yet the younger ones can't see what the fuss is about. Further more there seems to be less of a differentiation for younger people between work - personal. They often have both worlds much more blended than what older people feel comfortable with.

It's all changing and changing very fast. Get on the boat or be left behind seems to be the only way.

Posted 1 year ago #
don simon - Member

Apparently I've taken over the baton from Surf-Mat on AWESOMENESS, so it is probably more correct to say that I don't use Facebook in the traditional sense, it's more a question that Facebook uses me!

Posted 1 year ago #
GW - Member

only just set up a Facebook account a couple of days ago to enable me to hook up with a bunch of mates who've set up a group for organising local rides. Many of them are on here and I was fine arranging things via here until the recent spate of ridiculous thread moderation!

5... 4... 3...

Posted 1 year ago #
joolsburger - Member

It's largely to do with monetising the data contained in FB, for the under 30's it is one of the primary internet portals and they are tomorrows consumers. The advertising revenues are only a small part of the picture, as the mining technology to accurately target sales messages to people using convergent technology develops facebook will become even more valuable. TMT consultancies are all over this right now.

Posted 1 year ago #
joeydeacon - Member

Get rich scheme:

1. Write software that trawls "Lost my phone - Numbers please!" Facebook Groups.

2. Store phone numbers, names, locations and interests for said users.

3. Sell database of millions of contact details to unscrupulous marketers.

4. Retire.

Who's in?

Posted 1 year ago #
Cougar - Member

I have a FB account, but I rarely use it. I got very tired, very quickly, of all the "someone has sent you a fish for your aquarium!!" pish.

I keep it around for two reasons, the first is that I quite like being able to catch up with old school associates, even if it's just out of morbid curiosity. The second is that it's a fairly agnostic platform to organise things, so if you're organising an event involving people from different walks of life they're more likely to all have a FB a/c than, say, a STW account.

Other than that, meh.

Posted 1 year ago #
jejamescycles.co.uk - Member

We love our facebook page, great way for people to get intouch outside normal business hours to ask questions etc etc, and those questions are usually answered in good time (usually by my iPhone), it also gives customers the opportunity to upload pictures of their recent purchases and discuss future purchases with each other. There's also the obvious direct contact for positive or negative experiences when shopping with us.

Our fan base is growing organically and without any real form of advertising, so the maintanence of the whole thing is pretty low to get the ball rolling so to speak.

It's also a great platform to advertise our free give away competitions and offers and any new brands.

One of the very few free forms of marketing that actually works well.

Posted 1 year ago #
IanMunro - Member

32 billon / 550 million = 58 quid a person.

Anyone here put £58 of business facebook's way?

Posted 1 year ago #
don simon - Member

I do actually use it for a business as it's one point for my customers to see and bee seen, I am probably in touch with thousands of people via friends of friends. It allows me to have special offers which don't affect the main portal of sales, my web page. It also provides me with a database sorts of customers and also allows me to make the business more personal.
The Spanish forum I use is one of those with sections for everything and is a pain to use and I don'r really like using it for advertising.
There has also been a noticable drop off in usage of the forum.

Posted 1 year ago #
momo - Member

I use facebook, it's a good tool for keeping in contact with multiple people via the message system, organized yesterdays bike ride via facebook in fact.

Posted 1 year ago #
CharlieMungus - Member

My 17yr old niece doesn't have an email account and doesn't want one

How does she log in to facebook to see what her friends are recommending?

Posted 1 year ago #
joemarshall - Member

I did read somewhere that it's never ever made a profit - can anyone clarify?

It's hard to know, as they're still a private company, so don't have to publish it, but estimates of their revenue are something close to a billion dollars a year, and it is supposedly making a healthy profit nowadays.

32 billon / 550 million = 58 quid a person.
Anyone here put £58 of business facebook's way?

Hard to argue it is worth that much. But then it's in a bank's interest to value it high, as then when facebook goes public they can claim a higher value and hence charge higher fees from all the suckers who buy into it.

Although I guess if it continues succeeding, it essentially is in charge of a lifetime of highly targeted advertising access to all those people, not just the value of whatever you are now, and 58 quid doesn't buy a massive amount of (say) prime time tv. Looking at http://www.frankwbaker.com/math_in_the_media, for one prime time advert to 17 million people, people would pay roughly $500,000, or about $0.03 / person advertised at. So say 500 million people check it once a day for 30 years, that only values facebook at $0.005 per person advertised at. They are able to have somewhat more targeted advertising, so maybe able to charge more than TV ads, meaning the value of those users is more than one might think?

Posted 1 year ago #
hels - Member

No, and never will. I think it's creepy and stalkerish, sorry. Not to mention most people lead quite lame and boring lives, not sure why they think putting on t'internet makes it any more interesting.

And I have been predicting the massive commercialisation from the start, I will be right eventually.

Although I do get complaints from younger friends that they have to actually contact me in person to extend a social invitation. Not a problem as far as I am concerned ! In fact I say bring back hand written invitations.

Posted 1 year ago #
crazy-legs - Member

I use it, it's a useful tool although I refrain from posting too much shite on there, unlike some people I know who live out every second of their boring mundane life through it.
Likewise, it's easy enough to block the constant email messages and people sending you cows for your virtual farm.

Posted 1 year ago #
B.A.Nana - Member

I joined fb to get a code to watch some Freecaster.tv. Can't be bothered with it otherwise. Skype is great tho, especially now you can have conference video calls.

Posted 1 year ago #
Pook - Member

I've Facebook very useful for a number of years. Once my filters and privacy was set up I was happy. Now it's mainly used for chatting a bit and organising/sharing bike ride details, photos and videos.

Don't do much else on there to be honest.

Those who are worried about privacy - scare me. Show me what you can find out about me.

Posted 1 year ago #
hels - Member

Pook - it is not just what other people can find out. Facebook gathers masses of data about all it's users.

Posted 1 year ago #
Militant_biker - Member

It's Google, by a country mile!

Apples and Oranges to a degree. But Facebook is now more popular than Google. As evidence of part of this, from here;

Facebook has now taken top slot from Google as America’s most-visited website in 2010, according to a new report from Experian Hitwise. With three other variations of Facebook making it into the top 10 as well : “facebook login” at #2, “facebook.com” at #6 and “www.facebook.com” at #9.

there are significant issues relating to personal security

There are significant issues relating to personal security in everyone's houses! I mean, anyone can come into your house, look around, take anything they want. Unless you lock the doors and the windows.

Sure you can find people's profiles easily - the information I publish on STW is enough to find me there for instance. But I publish what I want people to see, or don't mind people seeing. You can find out a lot more about people if you know where to look.

Posted 1 year ago #
DaRC_L - Member

Not on FB nor are most of my mates...
our youngest is on it a lot, the middle 'un too but is not much of a social networker.

I use LinkedIn for work networking.

Posted 1 year ago #
aracer - Member

I use it quite a bit to keep in touch with all the people I know through adventure racing (who mostly live hundreds of miles away all over the country). Is a handy tool for the job.

Scarily I've just had a friend request from the owner of our kids' nursery. They already think I'm a bit mad - now they'll know for sure (I suppose I could have ignored it, but she's not really the sort of person you ignore). Feels just a little like having your mum as a facebook friend.

Posted 1 year ago #
user-removed - Member

Dammit - spent ages typing a post and STW fell over. Long story short - I use FB a lot for my business because the ads can be targeted at a very specific market.

And they work well.

Posted 1 year ago #
Pook - Member

I know that Hels - but there's literally nothing of interest in my details for that to bother me and any targetted marketing that they send my way is ignored. Much as advertising is on other sites for example. Such as those which glean info from google searches.

What is the worst they are going to do with my info?

Posted 1 year ago #
hels - Member

Like sending you loads of ads isn't bad enough ??

Posted 1 year ago #
the-muffin-man - Member

Like sending you loads of ads isn't bad enough ??

Well you wouldn't consume at any sort of media - web, TV, print, radio - if you're worried about adverts!

Ads on websites have never bothered me as they don't get in the way of what I'm using the site for.

Posted 1 year ago #
djglover - Member

I did what Joeydeacon describes. I closed my account becasue the updates I read from people were all dull and I barely knew them or had lost touch with them otherwise, all my real friends were using email or phone, but I am 35

I know that my younger sister uses it a lot though so there is probably a great deal of value in keeping the under 25's engaged in it

Posted 1 year ago #

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