Facebook study

Andrew Ba Tran
September 16, 2005

“Facebook will undergo a rapid decline in the coming years, losing 80 percent of its peak user base between 2015 and 2017.”

The forecast of Facebook's impending doom was made by comparing the growth curve of epidemics to those of online social networks.
Scientists argue that, like bubonic plague, Facebook will eventually die out.
Princeton forecast says it will lose 80% of its peak user base within the next three years.

Nothing sells on Facebook like another story about how Facebook is evil, uncool, or—best of all—doomed.

A Social networks’ growth can be likened to the spread of an infectious disease.
In the case of Myspace, the network’s decline can also be likened to the spread of an infectious disease.
Like Myspace, Facebook has begun to show signs of decline after a period of rapid growth.
Ergo, Facebook will be dead within three years.

No sh*t. That's why they call it “viral”.

Instead of comparing the decline of social networks to recovery from an illness, the authors make an interesting leap.

They hypothesize instead that the decline of a social network is like the spread of an illness—that leaving is as contagious as joining.

There’s a huge spike in October 2012 that the researchers can’t really explain and end up simply throwing out.

Why not use Facebook's registration and membership data?

Google Trends is not the best analytic to base this type of conclusion on

Just add the words “research” or “study” to a sensational claim for instant credibility.
Best of all, you’re absolved of any responsibility for verifying its truth, since everyone knows journalists aren’t qualified to dispute scientific findings.

Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.44 billion as of March 31, 2015, an increase of 13% year-over-year.