Law X.0

Facebook Demographics: More International, Fewer College-Age Users

Ben Lorica reports that "with the U.S. now accounting for only about a third of all Facebook users, we are starting to see a gradual shift away from its original demographic of college-age users (18-25): 46% of all users are 18-25 years old, down from 51% in late May. The number of users in the 18-25 segment is growing, but at a slower pace than the other age groups. Among the major Facebook age segments, the fastest growing are teens (13-17) and young (26-34) to middle-age (35-44) professionals, with the growth in teens driven by non-U.S. markets." [JH]

Facebook Demographics

Check out Ben Lorica's posts on O'Reilly Radar:

• Where Does Facebook Grow From Here
• Facebook Growth By Country and the Slowdown in App Usage

[JH]

British Businessman Wins Libel Case Over False Facebook Profile

In a test case the managing director of Applause Store Productions, Mathew Firsht, won a libel case last Thursday at High Court in London over false claims posted about him on Facebook. According to The Guardian, here's the facts of the case:

After Grant Raphael had a row with his old school friend Mathew Firsht, he wanted revenge. He disseminated a web of lies via Facebook, to cause Firsht stress and humiliation.

Yesterday Raphael was ordered by the high court in London to pay £22,000 damages to Firsht, after the freelance television cameraman created fake, malicious entries about the businessman.

Confidential details about Firsht's whereabouts, activities and birthday were "laid bare" on the social networking website for 16 days after Raphael posted the false profiles.

Firsht, managing director of Applause Store Productions, had his sexual orientation and political views misrepresented by Raphael, who also created a company profile called "Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?", from a computer at the flat where Raphael was living in Hampstead, north-west London, in June last year.

The UK court awarded Firsht £15,000 (about $30,000) and his television company, Applause Store Productions, £5,000 ($10,000) in libel damages. [JH]

Niche Social Networks Gaining Traction

Check out MySpace, Facebook: Big Not Always Better on CNN. The story notes that huge social-networking sites are losing people to smaller, specialized sites.

Professor Kagan observes on his A Little Class on the Internet blog:

An intriguing question is whether the next phase in social networking will be a migration to micro-interest sites. For now, FB and MS are permitting these niche sites to build widgets that integrate into the larger sites, so that users can keep tabs on all their social networks from a single location. But will that be enough as FB and MS users realize that the high-quality information and truly devoted hobbyists/interestists on niche sites exceed the lowest-common-denominator status that comes with having a truly immense user base?

Seems inevitable to me. [JH]

Is Facebook Overrated?

The article is about the advertising prospects of Facebook and MySpace. "Members of both Facebook and its chief rival, MySpace, spend on average about 3 1/2 hours a month clicking around on each site, but they get so caught up in checking out their friends' pages and updating their own that they are less likely to click through to the ads, writes Anita Hamilton in this Time article. [JH]

Victim Uses Facebook to ID Suspect

CNN is reporting that police arrested a suspect in an alleged hate-crime attack on the Georgetown University campus thanks to the victim who searched through Facebook profiles to identify his attacker. [JH]