It's the attention span of people online today that cause a rapid turn-over. When the internet was new and shiny, people hung around in one place a lot longer. These days, with so many sites flooding the on-line market, a site has to be pretty special to encourage customers to have any sort of staying power. Even more so when an exchange of money is taking place.
I'd also be interested to know the number of people who visit a site once, sign up, then never visit again. I imagine it's quite high! I know I'm guilty of it!
Well, I have been in a position to observe the flow and behavior of new members in SL on a fairly large scale (personally remained in contact with over 2000 new members over several years). About 90% who come in get involved in some way for at least several months. About the same amount will still respond if contacted after one year. But after that even most active members fade out.
There are some who make accounts and don't return immediately, but they usually do return eventually and get involved. There are also people who just abandon an account and open a new one. That is harder to track because they often just start over and don't contact old friends from the other account.
I see the same thing in Facebook, although it's not a paid service, people sign up, add everybody they can think of, pop in every day for a month or two, then disappear. There are a few people that I see on a regular basis, but otherwise, 85% of my friends list are ghosts.
Something that I find interesting about Facebook - it is a free service, paid by advertisers... but boy, do people like to bitch about the service and when changes happen! Somehow, they feel entitled to service as they want it, not as FB sees fit to maintain their profit.
Well, you are really only looking at a part of the economic picture there. What exactly is the attraction that facebook is selling that they are able to make money off of advertising? It is the content produced by the users themselves. What gives the owners of facebook the right to keep all the profit that is essentially generated by a large group effort that they are really only a small part of? They have the the ability through control of the system. That doesn't give them the right. So those actually producing the content do have a right to speak up about how it is managed
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I don't know what FB's business model is, besides targeted advertising, to be honest. I am what one might consider a light user. I don't play games and I block all of the applications and don't venture away from my update feed. I just think of it as one of those sites that I use, I enjoy, but if it disappears, then so be it. I would be SO much more upset if Livejournal went away.
You ask a good question - What gives the owners of facebook the right to keep all the profit that is essentially generated by a large group effort that they are really only a small part of? - I don't know. What does give them that right? The fact that they're paying people to run the site, paying for the infrastructure, footing the entire bill for the operation? If a user creates content that prompts somebody to go to a different page, and they see an ad that they click on and purchase a product... should the credit go to the person who made the initial post? Should they get a cut of the advertising revenue
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You actually present a pretty pertinent question here that I didn't really respond to yet because I wanted to look into it. Facebook has a different economic base: strictly advertizing. So really, the more active users they have the better their income. This is the direct opposite of sites that depend on member spending. So if, as you indicated from personal experience, the same slow growth and high turnover is happening on facebook then obviously there is some other contributing factor besides economics at play here.
So let's take a look at the facebook statistics page...a site where more active users would mean higher profit instead of lower
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SL hasn't had zero membership growth in two years, and concurrency figures have significantly changed since two years ago. You can see some long-term charts hereFurthermore, LL is quite concerned about retaining members, just, different sorts of members. They're worried about churn but they also believe that long-term residents are likely to just carry on, as if they didn't have a good reason to stick around they wouldn't still be there. (This has some truth but is also a bit short-sighted.) They have been making significant changes recently to attract new users, and also retain them, with programs such as Linden Homes
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As moderator of this community I suggest you read more carefully and do a bit more research before you jump in and start blasting away at anyone posting here
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As a poster in this community, if you're going to immediately reply to somebody disagreeing with your opinion with the poorly-veiled threat "As moderator of this community...": cheerio.
unfortunately for your theory several people have disagreed with me and even corrected me in this community just today with no problems, so I doubt you will find an audience for your hostility here. Goodbye then.
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These days, with so many sites flooding the on-line market, a site has to be pretty special to encourage customers to have any sort of staying power. Even more so when an exchange of money is taking place.
I'd also be interested to know the number of people who visit a site once, sign up, then never visit again. I imagine it's quite high! I know I'm guilty of it!
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There are some who make accounts and don't return immediately, but they usually do return eventually and get involved. There are also people who just abandon an account and open a new one. That is harder to track because they often just start over and don't contact old friends from the other account.
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Something that I find interesting about Facebook - it is a free service, paid by advertisers... but boy, do people like to bitch about the service and when changes happen! Somehow, they feel entitled to service as they want it, not as FB sees fit to maintain their profit.
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You ask a good question - What gives the owners of facebook the right to keep all the profit that is essentially generated by a large group effort that they are really only a small part of? - I don't know. What does give them that right? The fact that they're paying people to run the site, paying for the infrastructure, footing the entire bill for the operation? If a user creates content that prompts somebody to go to a different page, and they see an ad that they click on and purchase a product... should the credit go to the person who made the initial post? Should they get a cut of the advertising revenue ( ... )
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So let's take a look at the facebook statistics page...a site where more active users would mean higher profit instead of lower ( ... )
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No wonder it's on the skids.
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