Thursday, January 16, 2014

Facebook Is No Longer Cool?

Facebook and Obama
Unconfirmed reports and mock surveys reveal that many people who are under the age of 30 are dropping Facebook from their daily lives. If one considers the current batch of teenagers, chances are, they will consider “Facebooking” uncool.

It appears that the once dominant social network has most certainly fallen from its hyper-exclusive, hyper-popular beginnings to become the place where moms and uncles post their political opinions and baby pictures.

There are even unconfirmed report that says U.S. President Barrack Obama thinks Facebook has lost so much of its cool factor.

Atlantic's associate editor covering tech Robinson Meyer happened to be sitting near Obama at a coffee shop, of all places, during a meeting the President attended to learn more about the issues confronting 18-34 year olds. The goal was to get more people in this demographic to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. For Meyer, the goal was to overhear the president say something relevant to his beat and — as it so happens — President Obama gave him a gem.

"It seems like they don't use Facebook anymore," said President Obama.

Meyer tries to get to the bottom of the President's use of "they." Perhaps it was the age group he was researching, between 18 and 34, or maybe it was the all-encompassing, third-person singular, gender-neutral pronoun, muses Meyer.

But we know who "they" is. It's the cool crowd of teenagers and twenty-somethings that make social services popular to begin with.

Meyer’s eavesdropped interview also revealed that the president knows what Snapchat and Instagram are, though his interest and/or enthusiasm toward the up-and-coming social powerhouses is unclear.

According to Jordan Crook of TechCrunch, "What is clear is that Facebook has lost its swagger."

Since Facebook bought Onavo, which was one of very few services that could provide empirical data into this downward spiral, there is only one other service that can offer insight into the competitive landscape of Facebook and other social players.

According to App Annie, Facebook was ranked in the 50′s in downloads on the U.S. iTunes store. Meanwhile, Snapchat was ranked in the teens and even single digits. In August 2013, some sort of algorithm change suddenly bumped Facebook into the teens as well.

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