Facebook demographics getting older

Many of our clients have been concerned that marketing on Facebook will only address the younger segments of their clients.

Here is the proof that this is wrong from straighfrommybrain.com:




From Seth's Blog: Facebook for old people

Social networking race

Here is Alexa ranking of the top social networking sites.

Online tools with offline benefits

Adam Rifkin talks about building a new Facebook app Booze Mail

What is interesting in Adam's post apart from the fun app is his assesment of current apps on Facebook:

"The most popular apps on Facebook to emerge in the first month of its platform reflect the most popular worldviews in America. Namely the ones that highly value things like social status (Top Friends), media consumption (iLike, Video, Movies, Flixster), mysticism (Fortune Cookie, Horoscopes), and superficial bonding (Graffiti, X Me, SuperPoke, Free Gifts).

... from its earnest beginnings Facebook aspired to use online tools to help people connect offline -- in the real world -- to build more meaningful relationships. What these superficial bonding apps lack, despite being a lot of fun, is a connection to the real world that is offline."

I totally agree with Adam, if we can build applications that really bring poeple together offline, the value to the user is so great that they will make this application part of their life. Allowing users to send each other virtual kisses or kicks in the butt, might be fun for a few hours or days but will disappear the way flashing text disappeared from Web pages (until Myspace brought it back with a vengence)

Yahoo launcing app for Facebook

If you cant beat them join them. Yahoo has released a Yahoo Music Videos Facebook application.

The application "gets the music info from your Facebook profile and your friend’s profiles and finds a collection of music videos which match the names of the singers and bands you and your friends have listed. From those videos, you can then find videos of related artists, view them, and share them with your friends."

Why is Toronto n1 on Facebook

Alexandra Shimo from the Toronto Star writes trying to explain Why is T.O. the capital of Facebook?

Toronto has:
- more members than New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco combined
- 13% of population signed up to Facebook (that is 670,038)
- more groups about it than any other city in the world

Alexander's theory:

1) Toronto has one of the highest penetrations of the Internet in the world
2) Torontonians have high disposable incomes compared with most other Canadians (that does not explain why they beat NY or SF)
3) Social class, as Facebook seems to attract well-todo, do-gooders, with high education. Which fits the Toronto profile (see research paper by Danah Boyd)
4) 4 Universities. Since Facebook started as a university network the students provided the seed that infected the city accelerating the arrival of the fabled tipping point

I find that 3 is the most probable explanation. Facebook is a clean, fun, environment that encourages friends to be nice to each other while staying at a safe distance.

Very Canadian!

The Great Candian Wishlist

The CBC has launched an experiment on Facebook. It created a group that allows poeple to voice their wishes about the future of Canada.

What they did not anticipate is a passionate, keep-no-prisoners race between highly motivated pro and anti abortionists that involved neck to neck race over many weeks, hacking of Facebook, accusations of bias for the CBC and loads of other fun things.

The www.cbc.ca/wish blog tracked the contest over the weeks.

The group on Face book is here

Results:

Abolish Abortion in Canada
9543 supporters

#1 I wish that Canada would remain pro-choice
8008 supporters

#2 For a spiritual revival in our nation.
4508 supporters

#3 Restore the Traditional Definition of Marriage
4485 supporters

#4 I wish tuition fees would be either lowered or eliminated.
3388 supporters

......

#30 Get Stephen Harper out of Power
464 supporters