Comments on: There’s More To The FaceBook Traffic Story

By: Facebook Traffic Is Not About to Plummet — Facebook Observer

Facebook Traffic Is Not About to Plummet — Facebook Observer — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 09:07:03 +0000

[...] seasonal, as the same thing happened to Facebook’s traffic last year at this time. While some might not believe that the traffic dip is due to the start of the college season, I tend to side with those who [...]

By: Is Beacon Inflating Facebook’s Visitor Numbers? teasered @ Feed UP !!

Is Beacon Inflating Facebook’s Visitor Numbers? teasered @ Feed UP !! — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 08:33:59 +0000

[...] reported that Facebook’s unique visitors went up 20 percent in the month of November, after a controversial dip in September and practically zero growth in October. Could the increase have had anything to do [...]

By: Jon

Jon — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 21:50:17 +0000

Paul Sutter #52 nailed it. I work at another college-targeted site (CollegeHumor.com) and we show actual traffic growth by 8% in September, but comScore and Nielsen Netview show a decline versus August. Why? Because not only do they record households, but everyone in their panel must have a landline. Students living on campus who move annually rarely own a landline; they all just have mobile phones.

That these panels show a decline in September has nothing to do with students being more or less busy or more or less online, and has everything to do with the severe limitations of these panels.

Michael A., I don’t know why you flamed George P., but he was dead on accurate.

By: Marc

Marc — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:41:34 +0000

I don’t see a comparable dip last year? Show me a dip from last year.

Just like Om, comparing apples and oranges.

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

By: BRadCFan

BRadCFan — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:03:06 +0000

BRadC you rock, man. keep it up. well written, and truthful.

Arrington is a pompous ass and I for one am sick of hearing about it.

FB is the PR version of the ouroboros.

Arrington sux.

By: Gryf

Gryf — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 22:36:15 +0000

@73 “…not whore out products or services”

you mean, like “apps”?

By: Brooke

Brooke — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:38:49 +0000

Facebook page views is definitely a victim of user-friendly coding. The last time I checked, MySpace had no Ajax scripting and relied on page redirects and refreshes to get anything done on their site. Facebook is more streamlined and user-friendly with its Ajax, hence the smaller page counts.

IMO, the unique users stat is skewed in MySpace’s favour because it is a marketing vehicle for many bands, movies, actors, and such. Facebook, for the most part, is made up of regular people who want to use the service to keep in touch with friends, not whore out products or services.

You definitely can’t use the above Comscore data to make any doom and gloom predictions about Facebook OR MySpace…

By: SHERVIN

SHERVIN — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:07:10 +0000

In our space there is always a dip in September. Holidays always have an impact on uniques and pageviews. This year most people took off 3-4 days in September for Labor day (August 31st-September 3rd). That is 10% of September days that are impacted and makes September almost like February from a traffic pattern perspective.

I bifurcate the holidays between “outdoors” vs “indoors” holidays. Labor day is an “outdoors” classification. Outdoors holidays always have a negative impact. Some indoors holidays have a positive impact.

One time our sign-ups dipped on Halloween. We were panicking until I realized everyone in the US was outside trick or treating in the evening.

In other words, everyone chill out. Facebook is not going anywhere.

Cheers,

Shervin
Pagii.com

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 10:24:00 +0000

Not as dumb as the Madonna/$120M non-record deal.

By: alien

alien — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:40:32 +0000

C’mon.. he’s doing it to get a rise out of everyone

By: Clement

Clement — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:18:42 +0000

BRadC

You raise a great point here:

———————————————
Arrington:

1) Treat your readers with a bit of respect. How is that comment dumb? Qualify possibly the dumbest response to a comment ever from a Techcrunch writer, with something more than snarky tone at your very lifeblood. Infantile egotist.
———————————————

Someone said your blog reader is king!

By: Tyler Wright

Tyler Wright — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 07:42:53 +0000

I’m bored with FB, and I have spent an hour a day on it for 6 months. It will die like MySpace.

What’s coming after social networks??

By: mozartfan

mozartfan — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:43:44 +0000

hmmmm

By: StupidLawyerTricks2

StupidLawyerTricks2 — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 05:16:25 +0000

Facebook, more like Wastebook. Just stupid web crap.

By: Joseph Hunkins

Joseph Hunkins — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 04:16:09 +0000

Dumb or not, I’m with George. More learnin’ = less surfin’. However I’d like Comscore to do more to test their methodology against actual server logs and help explain what appear to be discrepancies. These reports often raise as many questions as they answer.

By: disq

disq — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:59:55 +0000

School is back in session. Less Facebook and more real books, which is what we need. But it doesn’t make anyone money, too bad. Books are better for the mind.

By: techmine

techmine — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:48:10 +0000

Facebookrunch is the upcoming blog from our favorite crunch network.
You just cannot separate facebook and techcrunch from each other….
Just kidding Mike. I know you are furious about the lawsuit threat!!

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:18:10 +0000

What can I conclude from this article? NOTHING! You state very aptly that

“But the bottom line is, there isn’t enough information yet to make any kind of definitive statement about Facebook traffic.”

So what was the point of writing an article if your facts are out of date and using third party traffic systems is a shot in the dark at best. I would say these numbers are maybe +- 20% or so which means there is nothing behind anything in these numbers unless you are dealing with their own server logs.

I really hope TechCrunch doesn’t become the next CNN of the internet… breaking news… we don’t know what has happened or what to make of it but hey, something happened and we hope that you stay tuned until we figure it out!

Hopefully this is just a “blip” on an otherwise very worthy industry feed.

Jon

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:46:11 +0000

I’m not sure on America, (that data is just America right?) but in the UK students go back to university in September and are busy settling back in, visiting friends going to freshers fairs etc. One of the contributing reasons Facebook traffic has been so high in the last months is because people are connecting with friend at University over the holidays, we may see a slowdown in the amount of users joining Facebook because people are busy doing real social stuff.
Personally I have seen less usage of Facebook since September from friends at university. However saying that I have seen a rise in the amount of organizations/entities setting up shop there, I think more and more professionals are using it to network.

By: Dan Ackerman Greenberg

Dan Ackerman Greenberg — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:17:47 +0000

@50, thanks for the advice. Send me an email - danielag@stanford.edu

By: Whit

Whit — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:10:03 +0000

The FB bubble is bursting as we type.

For all the tech speak on the “Social Graph”, one should not forget that the site is basically at the whim of 18-22 yr old college students.

It is a fad if I have ever seen one.

By: Cindy Artley

Cindy Artley — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 01:00:12 +0000

Guys, FB deserves the coverage. I have no problem with it provided TC covers al the other good stuff which it does well. I for one love the banter better than the copy, some of it is lol stuff and I hope we all keep it up!

I believe it is totally a seasonal bump. Macro growth like FB has had doesn’t just switch off unless we’re facing global tailspin…

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:58:14 +0000

Kids are heading back to school, moving in, and finding dates for homecoming (at bars - not on facebook). The traffic will come back. FB will rule the world and with their new development platform, Msft and Google should have great concern.

By: i don't need an ipodom!

i don't need an ipodom! — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:47:25 +0000

Even the traffic is not declining but flat, that is fatal for FB. FB is eyeing IPO, without double digit growth, it will be doomed. I used to be a loyal FB user. Since FB opened up the platform, I received more and more junk invitations and other annoying messages. My FB homepage becomes more like a circus. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has the feeling. If FB fails to cash in the FB app spike and wait until the hype cools down and former loyal users leave, the FB bubble could burst at anytime.

By: jason

jason — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 00:35:11 +0000

Thought it interesting that on Richard’s myspace page, http://profile.myspace.com/ind.....d=49248600

There’s an embedded Pet Shop Boys video. Wonder how much income that’s cost them(unfortunately probably not much but still ironic)