Do you have a Facebook inner circle? February 27, 2009
Posted by Blake Sunshine in social media, Uncategorized.Tags: dunbar number, facebook, facebook friends, inside facebook
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There was a really interesting post on Inside Facebook today from Cameron Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook. The post explained how the Dunbar Number, which says that you can’t be friends with more than 150 people applies to Facebook as well.
The paradox lies in the fact that almost everyone has more than 150 friends on Facebook, I even have somewhere around 1,000. So does the Dunbar Number not apply to me?
Of course it does, the researcher found out that:
The average female Facebook user with 500 friends:
- Leaves comments on 26 friends’ photos, status updates, or wall
- Messages or chats with 16 friends
According to Inside Facebook, that is only 5-7% of your friends who you actually communicate with through Facebook.
This leads me to the conclusion, now more than ever, that Facebook is much more of a stalking tool then a tool to communicate with your friends. For some reason, human behavior leads us to want information on people who we aren’t even really friends with.
Do you communicate with more than 5-7% of your friends on Facebook?
Happy Birthday Facebook February 4, 2009
Posted by Blake Sunshine in social media, Uncategorized.Tags: facebook, inside facebook, networking, social media
3 comments
For me it has basically been the year of the Facebook, so it’s hard to believe that Facebook is actually five years old this week. I started college in 2005 so I was lucky enough to see the very first version of Facebook (which has since gone through A LOT of changes). But, even after give years there are still a LOT of things that surprise me about Facebook and its users.
So here it goes, what has surprised me this year about Facebook:
1. Old ladies- Women over 55 are now the fastest growing demographic on Facebook., up over 175.3% in the last 120 days (according to Inside Facebook). Facebook is also growing faster with women in every single age group. Now a lot of my mom’s friends have joined Facebook in the last few months, but I am still surprised to see the numbers this large. A lot of my mom’s friends are joining just so they can seem hip and see what their children are up to, and apparently they are not the only moms hoping on the band wagon
2. The popularity of gifts- I’ve been known to give a free gift or two on Facebook, but can you believe that $30-40 million dollars of revenue comes from those virtual gifts? I didn’t think people ever bought those $1 gifts, but clearly I was very wrong. Now that Facebook has launched a scheduled gift application, which allows you to schedule giving Facebook gifts on people’s birthdays, I’m sure their revenue will only grow in the virtual gifting sector.
3. The 25 things note- A chain letter for adults, seriously? It’s most surprising to me that the 25 things note has become popular because the use of notes in general isn’t very popular. The 25 things note just proves that people will always love to talk about themselves in a forum where everyone can hear.
4. Inauguration Day- Two million status updates, WOW! I’m sure when Facebook started they never imagined that something so typically uneventful, like inauguration day, would bring people out in masses to their platform. It’s pretty amazing actually.
5. The hush over new Facebook- When new Facebook was launched there was an uproar over the design and usability of the platform. But that uproar has since been hushed, with hardly a whisper about “new” Facebook anymore. I’m sure Facebook was pleasantly surprised that this mini crisis dissapeared as quickly as it did.
I hope that over the next five years Facebook continues to surprise me with their innovative and connective thinking. Happy birthday FB!
