Peak Facebook: British users lose their Liking for Zuck's ad empire Facebook's popularity is slumping in the UK as users become fed up with being bombarded with advertising, a YouGov survey has revealed. In a report examining social media use among web-savvy Brits, the market research firm found a 9 per cent drop in Facebook usage since April 2012. Among the people who had quit Facebook, 23 …
Thats why yopu should NEVER submit wholly genuine details. Enough to get your account, yes, enough for them to launch ad after ad at you with no means of stopping them?. No.
Every advert i get on FB (and i have the most minimal account to keep in touch with the rest of my sheeple mates) gets reported as being sexually explicit. Just to fuck up their figures..
Try it, its quite satisfying. Also, living in Tongo means i have very few targeted ads as its the least populated place i could find to say i came from!!!!
Fuck you.......Bitch...
"Every advert I get on FB...gets reported as being sexually explicit."
That'll just get your feedback logged as malicious and ignored. I would say it's better to honestly select "Just not interested" in all the ads for cars, stock trading etc. If everyone did that FB would be put in an awkward position when they try to drum up ad sales for the new Lexus or whatever and the advertiser wants to see data on the level of interest /engagement with ads.
"Or use an ad blocking add on to your web browser."
Just what I was thinking! I use AB+ on my browser and I use FB for keeping touch with the rellies and I don't see a single ad in any page. Loads of crap JPGs from people with more time than sense but you know, take the rough with the smooth!
Or use an ad blocking add on to your web browser.
Even the best ad blockers can be a bit patchy at filtering out FB ads and I've yet to find one that even remotely works on the fb mobile site on Android.
FBPurity OTOH is pretty useful. As well as killing ads you can filter out all the uninteresting attention-seeking pish like app posts and other people's likes etc., ending up with a news feed that's simply full of the things your friends have - imagine this - actually typed and posted all by themselves.
All mention of it on facebook itself is verboten and seems to get you marked as "a spammer" if you link to it, especially on public pages/posts.
That just leaves the mobile site. Anyone got any tips on how to kill ads on that?
@Auburnman I've never had an advert about stock trading or cars on Facebook. I filled in my interests with things I genuinely like, and lo and behold I have adverts relevant to me which sometimes tell me about things I was unaware of. If everyone stopped trying to be clever and fighting the system they may find they actually don't mind advertising since it would be relevant to them. If you don't have sufficient hobbies and interests to generate relevant adverts then you won't be happy regardless what Facebook does.
The marketeers have overestimated the depth of the sheeple effect gold mine. By far.
If we step back a little and give it a thought - just how many times am I going to be interested in something just because all of my mates are interested in it.
Under "natural disease propagation" conditions - probably a lot. However, that is not necessarily valid under forced propagation conditions when the social graph is being abused to feed crap I do not want down my throat. Same as in real life - we "filter out" particular people's "recommendations" if they constantly recommend us crap.
The correct model for the value of Social is the infectious disease model. In that case, it is likely to follow an "infection curve" where it grows exponential initially leveling and then _DROPPING_ off because the pool of "susceptible" targets has dried out. We are definitely past the exponential curve now so it is only a matter of time until we get into the "drop of the cliff" zone. Pass the popcorn please, it will be lovely to watch.
I dunno, how many times are you interested in the article in The Reg on social media?
Whatever that number is, the number of times you'd "be interested in something because other people are interested in it" is more than that.
I dumped Facebook after they started keeping all messages server-side near-permanently.
For those who want to dump it: Search 'How do I close my account?' (sans-quotes) on Facebook help.
Takes 2 weeks and they claim all data is gone, I've still yet to file a DPA request but when I have spare cash I will to make sure everything is permanently gone. Been a while, more than a year (I think) and perv-power lost its charm on me so haven't even glanced at it since.
I seem to remember reading something about FB operating in Europe (They wouldn't make much money selling targeted ad-space in Europe if they couldn't sell in Europe!)
Last time I heard, everything was routed through Ireland, so that's the place to look when you do your "DPA". Remember that the "DPA" comes from a European initiative, and while it might not be called "DPA" where they register their company, the rules will be very similar.
While I agree, that anything you do online has a risk of getting owned, there are some actions that involve a higher risk than others. Following links to unknown websites is one of them.
It would not be the first time that ads are used for slinging malware.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/15/opera_blackhole/ -
"Malvertising" incidents are far from rare. Previous victims have included Spotify, the London Stock Exchange, The Pirate Bay, ITV.com and Major League Baseball, among many others
It has been written by El Reg, so it must be the truth. Right?
"Facebook is about to disappear"
No, it has merely (finally) reached the peak of stupidly fast growth and now has to take a reality check. Until something comes along to usurp it, FB will remain a big player.
Also remember this is specific to the UK, who are probably like 3% of FaceBook's user-base.
FB is no longer the cool new thing but it is still the dominant player... look how many decades MS has stayed top and how slowly their position is eroded even with Vista and W8.
The difference being that most social media businesses rely far more heavily on a 'critical mass' of users and an expectation that numbers will increase than most other businesses do. Numbers everything, as MySpace, Bebo etc found to their cost; if half your friends leave facebook, I'd say there was a far higher chance the other half will follow than with a search engine or online retailer. At the very least your own usage will decrease greatly, as you still need to communicate with the non facebook friends by whichever means they now use - email, twitter, whatever. Less eyeballs on ads, brand messages etc, which tends to attract negative press and fuel a general perception of decline.
It may not disappear, but a bit of the shine wearing off and a relatively modest decline in numbers has far more potential to become a complete rout than would apply to similar declines affecting say, Amazon, or given the relative longevity of the individual product, Microsoft. Facebook's continuing dominance is more ephemeral than the current numbers make it look.
People saying 'Facebook' will be around for a long time are being a bit naive, completely different model and market to a company like MS. Microsoft controlled the world of OSes because there weren't many genuine contenders around that could shove their marketing in your face like MS could. Facebook are a completely different paradigm, they got big by word of mouth, not spending hundreds of millions on advertising.
Like it or not, it's a different world now to when MS came up, businesses rise and fall a lot faster in the internet age. Anyone remember how big Myspace was? And where are they now?
Facebook usage is dropping, their IPO bombed, their phone bombed, they are getting crucified over taxes and privacy issues, they definitely seem to be on the downward path, rather than the opposite.
Facebook are in a similar position to Microsoft in that they have the users and data already. I dont think there will be the mass exodus people are predicting when the next social networking fad comes along as peaople will be reluctant to move their data to it and rebuild connections. Also why would you when everyones already on facebook?
Sounds very similar to MS lock in on software and data formats that has massively helped it keep its dominant position.
You can edit comments now. Have been able to for maybe a year.
Mouse over to the upper right of your comment and a pull down icon will appear.
Also the privacy options have become a lot better, much more facile and easier to use.
You can block work stuff from family, family stuff from work, school stuff from parents, whatever.
Of course nothing on the web is 100% secure, but that is a property of the web and of computers, not unique to FB.
but if you reply to a parent comment and press enter todo a line break, you will just post your comment, you cant fake a line break with \r\n at the end of a line
this post will just be all on a single line, and you can just end up with with a paragraph of something most people wont read
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