All Eyes on Facebook

A recent social media report from Nielsen’s shows, amongst other things, that Facebook dominates our attention on the Internet, larger in terms of minutes of face time than the four next most popular social media sites. Business Insider produced the following chart based on Nielsen’s data

It was recently (and widely) reported that the number of page views on Facebook passed the 1 trillion mark, but that figure has been disputed. In any case, all internet path seems to lead to Facebook one way or the other.

Facebook juggernauts towards 500 million users

AllFacebook.com has observed that, based on linear projections of current sign-up rates, Facebook will pass the 500 million user milestone by the end of June. Using population data published by the CIA, we will therefore soon have the situation where only China and India as countries will have more people than Facebook (1.33 and 1.56 billion respectively). Projecting further, Facebook will have twice as many people as the US by year end (around 600 million), and approximately a billion dollars in revenue as well.

It remains to be seen whether the current privacy backlash against Facebook introduces unpleasant non-linearities into these projections. A recent informal poll taken by Graham Cluley of Sophos, found that almost two thirds of the 1588 respondents are considering leaving Facebook. If we round up the respondents to an even 1600, and noting that Facebook has more than 320 million users currently, the survey represents a sample of less than 0.0005% of all users (that’s just 5% of 1% of 1% of the total). Even so, PC World has reported the survey under the headline Study: 60 Percent of Facebook Users Mulling to Quit which, I hope you will agree, is a bit grandiose. This is an example of how the non-linearities of reputational risk start accruing against a company with widespread and sustained bad press - and more will follow.

Privacy may yet be the Black Swan of Facebook.

Privacy degradation at Facebook

The EFF has an article on the changes to the privacy policy at Facebook over the last few years noting five significant changes (downgrades) since 2005. In short Facebook has flipped from a private social network to one where your data is largely public by default, mainly since Facebook can profit by selling this information to advertisers and business partners.

Here is the 2005 privacy language

No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

and the April 2010 version

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection

Quite a change. Matt McKeon has produced an interesting interactive infographic to depict privacy erosion on Facebook over the last 5 years

1-in-300 Facebook accounts hacked, and now for sale

There are several reports stating that one and half million Facebook accounts are for sale on an underground forum by a hacker calling himself Kirllos, which equates to about 1 account in 300 being up for grabs. VeriSign's iDefense group estimates that almost half of the accounts have been sold already.

Kirllos' is asking $25 for 1,000 users with less than 10 friends or $45 for those with eleven or more. This is quite cheap given that e-mail IDs and passwords typically go for between $1 and $20 per account, and credit card and bank account credentials can go up to $30 for credit cards and $850 for bank accounts.

As usual, Facebook users should check their passwords.