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Over 10B Social Network Accounts Created Already
siliconbits writes "Analyst firm In-stat has calculated that well over 10 billion social networking and online world accounts have been created by the end of 2010 with nearly half of them (4.5 billion) still active. The growth of free social networking websites like Facebook or Twitter can be credited for the exponential rise in the number of so-called SNOW accounts. Where before, virtual worlds were the realm of paid-for subscription-based gaming services like World of Warcraft, the pervasiveness and ease of access of the newcomers means that more people are creating accounts online than ever before."
...rise in the number of so-called SNOW accounts.
What's a SNOW account?
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Four billion of which are Twitter spam bots.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you IANASNOW. Well, I'm not. What would be more interesting to me, from a statistical point of view, is;-
a) how many of those 'still active' accounts are actually 'still used', and how many are dead accounts that people just couldn't be arsed to go through the agro of trying to close down
b) how many people actually own those 10bn accounts? I'm sure that there are many people out there who have a Twitter, FB, My[ ], WoW, 2nd Life etc - so how many billion individual people are actually on social networking / on-line world accounts.
Statistically I suspect that will show that I am still, statistically at least, 'normal'.
These numbers really cant be real, there isn't any real way to getting these numbers apart from the soucrce of the website, even then the numbers will be constantly changing and huge huge numbers of the accounts are fakes, inactive or bots.
I have a twitter account and clear out followers now and then. Most of them seem to be of the sort which sign up, post a link to their secret fat burning system and then disappear (Remove unwanted fat - Deluxe In-Home Guillotine Kit!)
In some headline I saw somewhere, could even have been /., 0.5% do 80% of the nattering.
Squeaky wheels and the cattle who listen to them, I guess.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"The growth of free social networking websites like Facebook or Twitter can be credited for the exponential rise in the number of so-called SNOW accounts. Where before, virtual worlds were the realm of paid-for subscription-based gaming services like World of Warcraft, the pervasiveness and ease of access of the newcomers means that more people are creating accounts online than ever before."
Comparing a website to a 3d persistent game world is beyond dumb. While both have a social interactivity component, they are completely different animals and experiences, their only commonality being that they are online.
Four-digit slashdot ID. Recognize.
... and we become more isolated as the number of accounts increase.
Where before, virtual worlds were the realm of paid-for subscription-based gaming services like World of Warcraft...
...except that before that, virtual worlds were mostly MUDs, MUSHes, MUCKs, MOOs and such, which were almost all free.
But I guess that history is too ancient for these "Analysts" to be aware of.
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.