Facebook Applications Trends Report #1

Appears on No Man's Blog

Last Friday I stumbled upon this fantastic facebook analytics site - Adonomics (previously Appaholic), which provides figures on all 8648 facebook applications. It’s similar to what you can view on facebook (i.e. most popular, % of daily activity) but with additional data such as estimate of the net value of each application as well as new and returning users.

The data immediately felt like a goldmine and prompted my curiosity to dig into the chart and to carry out a systematic analysis of the 100 most popular applications - those that have at least 1million users - in an attempt to get a better grasp on favoured activities that take place in this global playground. In a sense it is similar to my Youtube trends reports, only here instead of analysing what people are watching, I want to take a a look at what people are doing.

It is important to note that this represents only a slice of the social activity that takes place on facebook. It doesn’t say anything about what people say when they chat, what kind of groups they join, or what kind of videos and pictures they share). What I hope this report will do is to shed some light on the social meanings of these applications...

... Looking at these 100 most popular applications a very interesting picture revealed. There are overall 3 categories that these applications can be organised into:

Identity formation - 43%
Phatic Communication - 37%
Other - 20%

For the full story click here

OMG! Teens still talk with friends face to face

Phones and social-networking sites are also important, study finds
From: www.msnbc.msn.com
By Anick Jesdanun
updated 5:39 p.m. ET Dec. 19, 2007

NEW YORK - Teenagers still value phone calls and face-to-face meetings with friends even as they frequent online hangouts like Facebook and MySpace, a new study finds.

Nearly 40 percent of teens say they talk to friends on a traditional wired phone every day, and 35 percent say they do so on cell phones, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said Wednesday, analyzing its phone surveys from late 2006. Thirty-one percent of teens say they spend time in person with friends every day.

Fewer teens say they communicate daily using instant messaging, text messages or internal messaging systems at Facebook, MySpace or another social-networking site.

... more >>