NY Times asks if Facebook is dying, perhaps should look inward
A few days ago, the New York Times ran an article that put forth the possibility that there is a mass "exodus" occurring among Facebook users. I know, you're wondering, how could that be when Facebook's traffic is up 22.7% over the past 3 months and it's close to the 250 million user mark... The article's author cited several "friends" (actually two friends, and another former user, now disgruntled) as evidence for the argument in question. Three people constitutes a "mass exodus" out of 250 million? What world does the New York Time live in? Oh, that's right, the newspaper publishing world, which on the other hand is experiencing an exodus of sorts. Newspaper subscriptions and readership are at all time lows (at least in our lifetime). The New York Times' traffic stats are down 0.5% over the past three months. Online visitors to the NY Times site spend an average of 4.7 minutes per day on the site, while Facebook's visitors average 27.9 minutes on the site. Now you tell me, which site is being enjoyed by it's visitors more?
The Times article tried to point to the privacy issues of Facebook as a reason for this mass exodus. I'll agree Facebook and all other online social media sites have privacy issues. But it's interesting to note that when I went to post a comment to the New York Times article, I was required to 1) register (ok, fine); 2) provide my name (ok, fine); 3) provide my household income, occupation, industry and company size (these are relevant to my comment posts, how?). So, apparently the New York Times is happy to invade my privacy as well (of course we know that's for demographic purposes, which is for advertising dollars, which is for revenue, which the New York Times lacks right now).
It's a ridiculous article with little credible evidence. I tried to post a comment to their article about the lack of privacy that exists just to post a comment to their own website and about how newspaper publishers should be more worried about their own survival and less worried about writing speculative nonsense about social media (which they actively use by the way - here on Twitter and here on Facebook with over 469k+ fans). Needless to say they moderate their comments and mine was moderated out with a note that read "Thank you for your submission. Submissions are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive." I'll have to say I was definitely on-topic and not abusive, but I guess it's never nice to hear about your own woes, only to write about someone else's. Of note, nationally newspapers have recently seen a 7% drop in readership. The NY Times reported a 3.6% drop and a $74 millon quarterly loss earlier this year.
If you had to place money on which site will survive 5 years out from today, who would you bet on the New York Times or Facebook?
