Facebook conquering more foreign land but losing ground at home

[Saifullah Sani]

Facebook hit 687 million users worldwide at the start of June, increasing its total monthly audience by 1.7%, according to a new study by research and marketing group Inside Facebook.

CheckFacebook.com says that Australia currently has 10,368,720 Facebook users, comprising 1.52% of the global audience. Inside Facebook said last month that Australia has 10.0 million Facebook users at the start of May, up 8.0% from 12 months before. With a population of more than 22.6 million, Australia is the 17th country with most users of the social network site, according to Inside Facebook’s tally last month. Facebook is the country’s most popular social networking site, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn, respectively.

According to statistics from Inside Facebook Gold analytics service — which gets its information from Facebook’s advertising tool — Facebook is still growing towards 700 million users as the site got a boost from all regional markets outside North America.

Inside Facebook relates that the social media giant gained 11.8 million more users over May, following 13.9 million over April. In contrast, it grew by at least 20 million new users over the typical month in the past 12. Most of the new users continue to come from countries that are relatively late in adopting Facebook, as has been the trend for the past year.

The Inside Facebook study says the United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it. Its neighbor, Canada, also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia all posted losses of more than 100,000.

This is the first time the U.S. has lost users in the past year.

Having reached around half the total populations in Europe and North America, the site founded by Mark Zuckerberg had slower growth in these regions, Inside Facebook states. However, it noted that Palo Alto, California-based Facebook continues to rise rapidly in developing countries. For the past 12 months, Facebook made its biggest gains in Latin America, specifically Mexico and Brazil, as well as Asian nations, like India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Vincenzo Cosenza’s “World Map of Social Networks,” which charts popular social networks by country, shows that Facebook is now the most popular social network in 119 out of 134 countries. Since the last map was created in December, Facebook has conquered Iran and Syria, despite censorship issues. Consenza expects the Netherlands and Brazil will be the next countries to surrender to the Facebook domination. According to data from the Facebook Ads Platform, Europe has now become the largest continent of Facebook users with 205 million users.

Facebook is expected to continue its meteoric rise once it breaks into China. Facebook is currently blocked in China because the site doesn’t adhere to Chinese Communist Party rules for censoring content.

“But how much further can it go if it is to reach its goal of 1 billion monthly active users,” Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook asked in his write-up of the study. “At least without getting into China — a move that as we and many others have noted, could both give it access to hundreds of millions of users and compromise its reputation in the U.S. and many other countries around the world.”

SOURCE: International Business Times
http://thesantosrepublic.com/2011/06/facebook-conquering-more-foreign-land-but-losing-ground-at-home/

 

[Galaxy]

Facebook attracts 700 mn users globally, India at 6th place

The number of Facebook users reached around 700 million worldwide in the month of May, with the developing countries contributing the most, according to the data of statistics site Social Bakers.

"Facebook is still on the rise...number of its total users is closing in to 700 million users," Social Bakers said.

Five countries, Brazil, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico and Argentina, each contributed more than 1 million new users to social networking site Facebook in May.

At the sixth position is India with the addition of 918,140 new users last month taking the total users to 25.77 million in the country.

Best performer Brazil attracted 1.95 million new Facebook users in May taking the total membership to 19.09 million.

Brazil is followed by Indonesia with 1.59 million new users, the Philippines (1.33 million), Mexico (1.11 million) and Argentina (1.06 million).

According to reports, Facebook users are likely to reach one billion by 2012. Last July, when Facebook made 500 million users its founder Zuckerberg stated that there is no chance for the social networking site that it cannot reach 1 billion.

During the first quarter of 2011, the social networking site moved ahead surging from 585 million users to more than 665 million. There were nearly 80 million new users in three months.

Others in the top ten list include Colombia, Egypt, Turkey and the UK.

Facebook attracts 700 mn users globally, India at 6th place - Indian Express

 

[muse]

So what ? What's it mean?

 

[Martian]

A D.C.-based privacy group has asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine Facebook's facial-recognition technology.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) joined with the Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog, and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse to file a complaint with the agency, arguing that the facial-recognition software is "unfair and deceptive."

EPIC wants the FTC to require Facebook to stop using the technology pending an investigation, as well as ultimately make it opt-in.

"Users could not reasonably have known that Facebook would use their photos to build a biometric database in order to implement a facial recognition technology under the control of Facebook," EPIC argued.

The organization said without FTC intervention, Facebook will "likely expand the use of the facial recognition database it has covertly established for purposes over which Facebook users will be able to exercise no meaningful control."

Back in December, Facebook announced plans for facial-recognition technology intended to make it easier for people to tag photos of friends. Facebook said it would examine newly uploaded photos and compare them to other photos in which you or your friends are tagged in order to make tagging suggestions.

Last week, security firm Sophos expressed concern that facial recognition had been turned on by default. Users must go in and disable the service if they do not want to show up as "suggested tags" in their friends' photos. Facebook acknowledged that it should have been more communicative about the service.

"We should have been more clear with people during the roll-out process when this became available to them," a Facebook spokesman said in a Tuesday statement.

The news was met with concern overseas, however. Several members of EU's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party—like the U.K., Ireland, and Luxembourg—are investigating the issue.

"As with any new technology, we would expect Facebook to be upfront about how people's personal information is being used," the U.K.'s Information Commissioner's Office said in a statement. "The privacy issues that this new software might raise are obvious and users should be given as much information as possible to give them the opportunity to make an informed choice about whether they wish to use it. We are speaking to Facebook about the privacy implications of this technology."

In the EU, the Data Protection Directive of 1995 requires that people give their consent to the use of their data. Companies that process personal data must tell users about how their information is being used and whether it is passed on to other companies or individuals. The data protection agencies within the EU are responsible for monitoring and enforcing this directive, according to a European Commission spokesman.

Though the Article 29 Working Party is independent of the European Commission, the commission will propose a reform of the data protection rules this year. "The challenges on data protection resulting from new technologies, such as cloud computing and social network sites, are one of the central reasons for this reform," the spokesman said.

Here in the U.S., Rep. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, expressed support for the EPIC filing. "The Federal Trade Commission should investigate this important privacy matter, and I commend the consumer groups for their filing. When it comes to users' privacy, Facebook's policy should be: 'Ask for permission, don't assume it,'" Markey said in a statement. "Rather than facial recognition, there should be a Facebook recognition that changing privacy settings without permission is wrong. I encourage the FTC to probe this issue and will continue to closely monitor this issue."

Markey and EPIC have both tangled with Facebook in the past. In December 2009, EPIC and other consumer groups filed another complaint with the FTC arguing that Facebook's recent privacy update violated federal consumer protection law. It also expressed concern with Facebook allowing developer access to users' phone numbers and addresses, a feature it is now revamping.

Markey and Rep. Joe Barton, meanwhile, have written to Facebook on several occasions requesting more information on data collection by third-party developers and advertisers.
Privacy Groups Request FTC Probe of Facebook Facial Recognition Tech | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
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FB users should be aware of potential pitfalls of providing excessive personal information. People should use of social media at minimum level to safe gaurd their interests. Privacy issues is one of the reasons people are leaving facebook.