Facebook Loses Users, Satisfaction Higher at Google+

benfrog writes "Facebook has lost what (by the standards of their userbase) is a modest number of users over the last six months, which is perhaps one of the causes of a fall in their stock price. In the meantime, a study shows that Google+ users are more satisfied with the site than Facebook users, who are (understandably) upset about the number of recent UI changes, the amount of advertising, and other elements, according to a statement accompanying the study. Figures also show dramatic growth in Google+ usage."

Comments

Hmmmm, yeah

[Giant Electronic Bra]

Is this like some sort of Google ad? I dunno. I like G+ too, but it is a little hard to use in the ways that you can use FB when people just don't do a lot with it. Maybe they'll hit some sort of critical mass? I'd like that, but...

Re:Hmmmm, yeah

[stevencbrown]

there is a definite spin to the article - not like slashdot.(!)

I like G+ as well, but just don't see how it ever reaches critical mass, and even if it does, will it supplant facebook, or will it just become as annoying as facebook.

I use 3 social media sites, and feel the all fulfill a certain niche, and not sure that will change for a while.

Facebook, for semi-interesting mix of updates from a variety of friends and acquaintances, just dip in now and again when I'm bored, certainly don't feel I'm missing out on anything if I don't check.

G+ fulfills more of my tech need, as I most of the stuff I follow in there is more tech related, and I tend to check it every day, and usually get some interesting reading out of it. (though had to unfollow NASA, they provide way too many updates if they had been landing somebody on Mars, let alone just updates about the effects of micro gravity on small screws).

Twitter is good for when I'm on the toilet and doing a dump.

Re:Hmmmm, yeah

[bedroll]

I doubt it's an ad or a distortion. It's common for a smaller, more committed user base to be happier with a product. There's a lot of ownership bias. At this point most people have at least a clue what G+ is, and the ones who use it know that they're dealing with a smaller user base. They're happy with it despite its flaws and lack of ubiquity. It shouldn't be surprised.

The slowing of FB adoption is the bigger story. It probably doesn't mark a shift toward G+, but it may be that Facebook is at the upper bounds of users interested in its service. For my part, I didn't close my FB account but I've moved almost all of my social networking activity over to Twitter. I wanted to like G+ but none of my social circles use it.

Re:Hmmmm, yeah

[elashish14]

Pardon me for being idealistic here, but I don't see how any good friend would force you to use a social networking service, especially if you have a legitimate problem with it.

I kicked Facebook permanantly over a year ago. In that time, I've found that the friends I communicate most with send me updates from Facebook anyways, or link me to pictures on Facebook (which I need a proxy to view since I've blocked as much FB as I can in my hosts) - quite a few of my friends do this in fact. This was what I figured would happen when I chose to delete my account; if they're good enough friends, we'll find other ways to keep up anyways, and that's certainly turned out to be true.

Maybe everyone who's finding this dissatisfaction should just try it. Disable the account for a few months and see what happens. Maybe you too will find that Facebook is not the only medium of communicating with other people. Personally, I feel thoroughly liberated since I deleted (not disabled) mine.

Re:Hmmmm, yeah

[DerekLyons]

Just like LiveJournal before MySpace, the social medium is fad-based.

People keep saying that... so often it's become accepted truth, while ignoring reality. Not to mention that Slashdot, ever disdainful of anything the masses like, had been gleefully predicting Facebook's imminent demise since the day they opened their door to the public.
 
Yes, Livejournal and Myspace had a lot of users - among the early adopters and the young. Neither had anything even remotely approaching the depth and penetration that Facebook has. So, are they fad based? Or did it just take a couple of tries before someone got it right, or close enough to right, to capture and dominate the market? The jury is still out, but the evidence is somewhat in favor of the latter.
 
A new social network, to topple Facebook, has to both replace Facebook functionally *and* capture a huge number of users across a broad range of social strata. (Just capturing the tech elite and next-best-thing adopters won't cut it anymore due to deep and broad penetration of Facebook.) That's a tall order, even for Google.

Re:Hmmmm, yeah

[interkin3tic]

Why try to use it as a Facebook replacement? It isn't designed to directly compete. Facebook has a "two way" model (where two people have to agree to be 'friends')

Some of us are wishing to replace it maybe? Facebook has annoyed me many times more than google has. Site redesigns that I didn't like, privacy issues. For another, I'm facebook friends with more people than I want to be. Some of my relatives got really upset when they found out I was on facebook, was not friends with them, and had blocked them. People from high school who I didn't bother going to the 10 year reunion to see. Seems like most of my facebook friends are people I don't want any contact with. Meanwhile, most people I know aren't on google plus, and I haven't built up a pile of fake friends in it yet.

Maybe that's just me.

My biggest facebook annoyance

[cpu6502]

They keep redirecting my tablet from www.facebook to m.facebook. That's like me telling my taxi driver to take me to Baltimore, and instead they take me to the tiny town of Columbia. I can't figure-out why the programmers would arbitrarily decide to overrule my desire to vist the full WWW page.

As for google, none of my friends are over there, so I have no interest. It would be like standing in a room by myself.

Re:Misleading google+ figures

[Anonymous Coward]

otherwise you look like kind of an asshole.

Or a shill, which is what I suspect is behind this slashvertisement.

Re:Full time job?

[Attila Dimedici]

Are you sure that Facebook has not created a "ghost" account for you with information they have gleaned from people who are actual Facebook users, just waiting for you to create a user account to link it to?