Could it be that I was right?

Fri, 20 Jul 2007 14:28:29 GMT

Way back last September when Facebook was starting to open up I wrote a pretty upbeat opinion about the future of Facebook as it opened up. I didn't think that opening Facebook to everyone would chase away the college kids. And I thought that young adults post college would join it and use it in new ways. It looks like, so far at least, I was right.

According to Inside Facebook the demographics at Facebook show growth in all age groups.

Visitors aged 12-17 increased 150% over the last year
Visitors 18-24 increased 38%
Visitors 25-34 increased 181% during that time - a huge number
Visitors 35+ increased 98%

Facebook is now attracting a lot of young people who used to go to MySpace (or so it appears to me). This is a notoriously fickle age group and counting on each new cohort of that age group to go the same place is risky business. I would not get complacent about that age group under any circumstances. Although to be honest the high school kids I have interacted with on Facebook (admittedly a very small subset) seem relatively serious and pretty much all college bound. That trend will be interesting to watch of the next couple of years.

I did write last September that I didn't see young people moving from MySpace to Facebook in big numbers. Was I wrong or are the kids joining Facebook those who were never involved in MySpace to begin with? I think the latter but have no data to support it.

The 18-24 increase is about what you'd expect since Facebook already had a huge part of the college aged student. The 25-34 increase doesn't surprise me in the least. It appears to me that recent college graduates are connecting with their slightly older professional peers so that they can all use a tool the recent graduates found useful. I suspect that a good part of this is the international growth as well. I am really curious to see how the international aspect effects Facebook as time goes on. But I do predict continued growth in this important (to advertisers especially) demographic.

And what about that 35+ group? It doubled but it was probably not a huge number to begin with. Who are those people? Parents? School administrators? Or just older people like me who work with young professionals? That is the one I really wish I had more data about.

Clearly the openness (thinking applications as well as membership) have made Facebook a platform that is more useful to more people. Some pretty smart people over there. Their missteps have been few and seldom caused long lasting problems. If a company, like Microsoft, were to buy Facebook I almost think that getting the smart people who run Facebook might even be a better reason for the purchase than the large customer base. Maybe rather than a big company ruining Facebook the smart people at Facebook can fix the social computing aspects of a big company? Now wouldn't that be something!

Technorati tags: facebook, social computing

Alfred Thompson the Cyberspace People Watcher: Facebook

Could it be that I was right?