back to article Facebook debunks Princeton's STUDY OF DOOM in epic comeback

Facebook's data scientists have schooled two Princeton students who published a paper predicting that the social network would lose 80 per cent of its users by 2017 and go extinct shortly afterwards. In a mock study Mike Develin, Lada Adamic, and Sean Taylor, of Facebook's data team, used the same methods as the original paper …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The reason FB is doomed is simple. They floated the company and the customer is now the ad-men and not the users.

    The annoyances are building. It will go the way of MySpaz.

    1. Pete Spicer

      So which C-list celebrity is going to buy it and prop it up in a few years then? Justin Timberlake is busy with MySpace.

      1. eldakka
        Coat

        The 'other' Justin, Bieber that is.

    2. Sanctimonious Prick

      Domed

      "Princeton is domed."

      The damn Corrections link isn't working!

      1. frank ly

        Re: Domed

        I've had a look at some pictures on Google Images. Princeton is spired and arched and turreted and towered; no dome in site.

        1. TheRealRoland

          Re: Domed

          'it was a site to behold'....

          sigh.

        2. Ian Michael Gumby

          Re: Domed

          That would be MIT.

          If memory serves its the main library that has a dome and one year, many, many moons ago, someone put a big nipple on it calling it the breast of knowledge.

          Note that other objects include a working telephone booth. (Yes, you really have to go back to the 70's and early 80's to see some of these crazy hacks.

          And in the fall of '82, MIT 1 vs. Harvard/Yale 0; (Half time prank where they inflated a big balloon filled with talcum powder so that it wouldn't stick....)

    3. Tom 13

      @AC: Friday 24th January 2014 21:50 GMT

      If you think anybody other than the ad-men were ever FB's customers, you're even more confused than those guys at Princeton.

  2. Pete Spicer

    I thought the original article had a reasonably intelligent point, but trying to debunk it with the same methods was never going to work. Note: this is all about discrediting the report by attacking its methods than about proving that it is flawed for any other reason... it's almost an ad-hominem.

    1. jaduncan

      Attacking the methodology of a paper is very far away indeed from an ad hom.

      1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

        Precisely. If the method of a scientific paper is shown to be wrong, the paper is wrong, i.e. its conclusions are flawed or unfounded. Once you have shown a conclusion is unfounded, you can safely ignore it, because it has been demoted from conclusion based on scientific method to opinion. The opinion could be right, of course, but without scientific backing it is just that, an opinion.

        Attacking poor methodology is good practice in science. Much as I hate to come to the defence of anything Facebook, the data scientists are correct in attacking the method

    2. Psyx

      "Note: this is all about discrediting the report by attacking its methods than about proving that it is flawed for any other reason... it's almost an ad-hominem."

      No it's not.

      No hard science degree for you.

      (Also: The contention that less internet searches for it = dying is clearly erroneous. The quite opposite "It's so popular that people know how to find it with out googling!" is just as valid a reason for the decrease in search.)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Of great didactic value.

    IMHO, the response by the Facebook lad will be of great didactic value in A-levels and first-semester courses in illustrating various basic points about research and statistics (choose your data sources properly, apply the right methods to your experiment, and of course, correlation vs. causation) in a fun way and by relating it to something everyone concerned will know about (Farcebook) and many/most will have experience with.

    I feel Dr. Develin deserves credit for this, while recognising that this is probably going to taint somewhat the results of the Princeton guys' peer review. Oh well, it's all experience after all. :)

    Some of the comments on that facebook page are pretty amusing too. Complete with obligatory XKCD references (605) and Internet Explorer market share vs murder rate graphic showing (with the aid of suitable manipulation of the Y axis) an undeniable correlation.

    Of course, if Facebook turns out to be history by 2016[1], the Princeton side will have had the last laugh.

    [1] Or if Princeton run out of students by 2021. Bit of a Pyrrhic victory in this case though. :-(

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      Re: Of great didactic value.

      Also worth remembering xkcd 552

    2. dssf

      Re: Of great didactic value.

      But, even if FB dies by 2016, there may not be a factual causal relation corresponding to or supporting Princeton's work. For example, if an earthquake destroys SanMaAlto, and concurrently FB's underground servers overheat in agony at the whoosh sound of MZ and company vanishing, those events would have nothing to do with bored, defecting, or overloaded users checking in less on their accounts and friends' walls. Princeton will have just taken a SWAG, and coincidentlally a prediction.

      Awesome comment on the correlation between IE market share and corresponding rate of murders. So preposterous, it was one of my best laughs of the day....

    3. Tom 13

      Re: Of great didactic value.

      Even if FB is history by 2016, the paper is still discredited.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "They also used the same logic to show the world will run out of air by 2060."

    I lol'd.

  5. Herby

    Correlation equals causation?

    Note to Climate Change people: Listen UP!

    Enough said.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Correlation equals causation?

      Speaking as a climate scientist, thank you helping to show me the error of my ways. The fact that correlation does not imply causation - which you alluded to in your posting - came as a complete shock to me and those colleagues who have also read your comment.

      We are erecting a statue in your honour, then we are all resigning and getting jobs stacking shelves in Poundland.

  6. Eddy Ito

    I thought the original Princeton piece was intended to be a bit tongue in cheek. I mean it's titled "Epidemiological modeling of online social network dynamics" and it was put out by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. If it had come from either a bio-science or computer science related department, I might have thought it was an attempt at a serious treatise but coming from the aero-mech boys it seemed pretty clear that they likely had a pint or two too many and decided to extract the urine out of a company owned by a former Harvard boy.

    1. dssf

      Whoaa... If it IS tongue-in-cheek

      Then is shows that some PhDs at companies either let that (joke) fly right over their heads, and went into reactionary mode, or FB's PR/marketing/Spin Doctor Offices felt an urge to keep the investors at bay...

      1. disgruntled yank

        Re: Whoaa... If it IS tongue-in-cheek

        Or that they replied in the same spirit.

  7. suspicious-mind

    >Note to Climate Change people: Listen UP!

    Never did understand what 'up' (or 'UP') is intended to contribute in that aural context.

    1. LaeMing
      Boffin

      It means if you turn your head enough to the side, the graphs all show average global temperatures is staying steady!

      1. suspicious-mind

        >It means if you turn your head enough to the side, the graphs all show

        >average global temperatures is staying steady!

        Doh!

        I was talking about SGCC (semantics, grammar, comprehension change), not climate change!

        1. Eddy Ito

          "I was talking about SGCC..."

          Oh, in that case 'listen up' is the twin half-sister of pipe down, shut up, kick back, put out, chill out, dig in, hunker down and a whole bunch more, all right errr, alright?

          1. dssf

            Damn you, Eddy... I've got cramps, from my most intense laughter of the day... "twin half-sister".... You just surpassed my laugher-response to ie-vs murder rate correlations laughter...

            Damn, my head is pulsing.... I gotta get back to drawing before I stumble up something that keeps me from being able to breath steadily...

            Twin half-siste......

          2. suspicious-mind

            "Oh, in that case 'listen up' is the twin half-sister of pipe down, shut up, kick back, put out, chill out, dig in, hunker down and a whole bunch more, all right errr, alright?"

            Errr, not alright.

            Remove the second word from the examples you gave (with the possible recent exception of chill) and you change the meaning completely or leave no meaning.

            Remove the 'up' from 'listen up' and you have a perfectly good word meaning what it always meant, way before the first plonker stuck a spare 'up' on the end.

            I'll see your 'errr' and raise you a 'Doh!'

            1. Daniel Johnson

              It's American thing. They also say "wait up", "grabbed up", etc.

              1. Mike Echo

                Or an all time favourite - "bigged up". Ewwww.

  8. suspicious-mind

    Didn't need Princeton to tell me that fashion-fad social networks have only a few years before hard-of-thinking users realise they're not worth a hill of beans (?).

    1. mark 63 Silver badge

      not worth a hill of beans

      I disagree - exhibits A & B:

      Celebrity magazines

      Reality TV

      1. suspicious-mind

        Re: not worth a hill of beans

        Exhibits A and B are the very, *very* hard of thinking.

        I was only talking about the computer-/mobile-prodding, run-of-the-mill, moderately hard-of-thinking.

        1. cambsukguy

          Re: not worth a hill of beans

          There are a lot of the very, *very* hard of thinking, judging by the near total domination of reality TV including at least one entire channel.

          Plenty enough to keep fb going unfortunately. If not, something just like it, another pyrrhic victory since that will be shit too.

          And Sherlock came and went so quickly.

  9. RobHib

    Time will tell

    We'll see. Time will tell.

    (I'd only observe that most things with a meteoric rise usually end in a meteoric fall.)

    1. 142
      Alert

      Re: Time will tell

      > (I'd only observe that most things with a meteoric rise usually end in a meteoric fall.)

      Indeed.

      Except, seemingly, FB's archenemy: Google.

    2. Rukario
      Mushroom

      Re: Time will tell

      > (I'd only observe that most things with a meteoric rise usually end in a meteoric fall.)

      I've never seen a rising meteor, only falling ones.

      What happens if a big enough one falls ----->

  10. James Anderson

    Tipping Point

    I think we have reached a tipping point where 6% of GDP on university education has stopped being merely wasteful and started to be actually harmful.

    The number of low quality papers published by thousands of PHD students and there mediocre professors is drowning out real science.

    I mean is it really necessary for a software salesbody or a payroll clerk (sorry HR consultant) to spend four years of their life studying something totally irrelevant?

  11. jake Silver badge

    "and there mediocre professors"

    Like the professors who (attempted) to teach you written English?

    1. Tom 7

      Re: "and there mediocre professors"

      and over there mediocre professors and way over there....

    2. Daniel Johnson

      Re: "and there mediocre professors"

      "Like the professors who (attempted) to teach you written English?"

      It's probably just a typo. I don't think you need to go to university to know the difference between there and their. I didn't (although I imagine you did).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "and there mediocre professors"

        No no no no fucking no, it's not a fucking typo.

        It is not possible to accidentally type there when you mean their, unless you have fingers 4 inches wide.

        It's not dyslexia either.

        1. Tom 13

          Re: It's not dyslexia either.

          It could be. Or at least it could be the same root cause in the brain functionality. I'm very mildly dyslexic. I've noticed that these days my brain can get so far ahead of where I'm typing that you'd have no idea what I've mangled. So I'm trying to be more careful.

  12. jake Silver badge

    Gut feeling ...

    ... what this "study"/"counterpoint" really shows is that the goo-tards are becoming increasingly meaningless to folks who are actually looking for real, useful information.

    Seriously. Think about it.

    Facebook? Looked at it once. Found it useless. I have a RealLife[tm].

    ::shrugs::

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gut feeling ... @jake 06:56

      " I have a RealLife[tm]."

      And amazingly, the more you say it the less it rings true ...

  13. Pen-y-gors

    What would be very interesting...

    is if FB published real data of active users/new signups etc for the last 5 years or so. Then we'd see what the curve was like. Can't see it happening though...

  14. John Deeb
    Boffin

    But Facebook is not a historic institution, more likely a disease

    Facebook geeks are still making a fundamental mistake with their (tongue in cheek) attempt to discredit the Princeton prediction about Facebook. The methodology as used by Princeton works mainly for studying the spread of infectious diseases or ideas and therefore makes the assumption that Facebook acts more like an idea than an institution and a such it would end up having the same kind of demise.

    The error of the Facebook rebuttal is to liken Facebook to an institution like a world class university (what modesty!) and dismiss the notion Facebook would be akin to a virus or as vapid as an "idea". Facebook believes, naturally, that they are about real connections and services being provided.

    The idea under scrutiny is probably the one of "being connected on-line to my friends, families and lovers" but is Facebook justified to think they can keep the idea like "Facebook is the best way to maintain these connections" alive? Not before they can become a distinguished institution, I'm afraid, something that cannot be replaced by a new collection of cool upstarts that easily.

  15. Vociferous

    "this is either very poor science or just another attempt to gain 15 minutes of fame"

    Both are distressingly common in science, I'd estimate that in my field somewhere between 20-40% of all published articles are junk. In this particular case, considering that these two guys were PhD students, I think it's a case of Baby's First Publication.

    That students publish junk isn't really their fault, they're learning and still don't really know what they're doing, the real fault lies with their supervisor, who should have supervised, coached and advised them, and with the reviewers, who should have rejected publication.

  16. bigtimehustler

    Haha, I did say this research seemed pretty bogus, glad somebody took the effort to show why.

  17. Christian Berger

    Not the only metric

    I mean sure extrapolating a trend isn't always going to work, but ask Wolfram Alpha for the number of Facebook members per world population.

    http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=facebook+members+per+world+population

    If Facebook continues like this and we don't have a plague that kills mostly non-Facebook users, their growth will be consider to be considerably smaller than the growth of the population. Cutting down on fake accounts doesn't seem to help eithere.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Much, MUCH Worse Than We Could Ever Have Suspected!

    "They also used the same logic to show the world will run out of air by 2060."

    Here's a studying showing that there won't be any air left! Now we are really in trouble!

  19. Ian Michael Gumby
    Boffin

    There are lies, damn lies and then there are statitstics...

    If you want to see why Facebook is doomed to failure, just look at its predecessors. Compuserve, AOL and others.

    The community will last until a point. And then people will leave out of boredom. There is also a diversity of sites that offer similar parts of the service, without the over abundance of ads.

    As people leave and new people don't join, they will be forced to push more ads to make more revenue off their shrinking population. Its an inevitable death spiral.

    How long it will take, is anyone's guess.

  20. Tom 13

    attempt to gain 15 minutes of fame

    I'd say they've garnered a good bit more than 15 minutes of fame. This makes the second El Reg article they've generated with a fair number of comments on both.

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