Old folk on Facebook  

Posted by David Culp in , ,

I can remember first hearing about Facebook a few years ago - that it was like MySpace, but more of a social networking site intended for young people. I know it started only allowing college students, and even when they opened it up to the general public, they intentionally held on to the image of hip and young, but now the Baby Boomers and Seniors are the largest growing segment of users by far, while the younger segments seem to be leveling out. The breakdown of the stats is in an article on Mashable here.

Boomers using social networking sites are up 15% from 2008 to 2009, and of those 73% are using Facebook. In contrast, increases in younger users has leveled off in the past year. I wonder if this will change the perception of Facebook and how they market themselves. I would imagine they don't want to sever from their roots completely, and they risk losing the "hipness" of their brand even as they broaden their community.

1 comments

Peter Inthirakoth   says January 29, 2010 at 6:58 PM

It made me think of that video on Mycourses that we had to watch. The speaker talked about how the generational divide was becoming blurred, about how the youth were lapping their older counterparts but maintaining more productive and less confrontational relationships.

Maybe age is becoming less of a concern for segmentation. It seems to me that psychographics are becoming more important than ever as the internet drives people together through common interests rather than arbitrary factors.

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post

Categories

Followers