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Jan 17, 2009 
I just had a great exchange with my 16 year old stepson. He argues that Facebook is for teens (and hopefully we’ll see his response below – remember no bad language and this is a moderated site…). I argued that it is for adults.
Just so everyone knows, my wife created my facebook page just last week, so I’m no heavy user. My preference has been for LinkedIn which clearly is a business social networking site. I actually had stated that I thought facebook was more a pickup tool for the “single” scene of the 20-30 year old demographic. However, I must say that I’ve been incorrect. After having added about 40 friends so far, the majority are same demographic as me (35-49)…..not much of an argument though as those are the people who would probably “choose” to confirm my friendship.
Back to the disagreement, the primary crux of my argument is that the majority of advertising is geared towards people that spend money (other than the “nag” factor advertising towards little kids). Therefore, if Facebook, MySpace, or any other site based on web traffic was expecting to make a return on investment, eventually they need to reach a cash-laden demographic. A good example of this is how credit card companies target college kids to get them “hooked” on credit cards and eventually profit when they make higher-than-average wages with their college degree. So, I did some surfing……..googling……and research.
Now, it’s not entirely fair to write just one side of the argument on this blog….but then again teens have a lot more time and a lot less kids then I do…..so they can go ahead and write a well-thought out response in opposition. Here is what I found.
Facebook - The Complete Biography provides the history of Facebook’s creation. There probably are many different sites, but this seemed straightforward. Mark Zuckerberg and some Harvard buddies created a phenomenon among college students that spread quickly. Back when this article was written in 2006, you had to have an organizational email address which restricted growth. Obviously that changed at some point.
As I suspected, when it was funded by $500k by Peter Theil, then $13m from Accel Partners, and another $25m from Greylock (almost $40mil invested) to create an ad-based web traffic driven site, I’m sure they are expecting to reap some return.
I pulled up the Wikipedia history of Facebook which is more current. Initially, Zuckerberg restricted it to Harvard students (which kind of stops both sides of the argument - it wasn’t geared towards teens and it wasn’t geared towards “working” adults). It then expanded beyond Harvard to all Ivy League schools. After that, it was opened to high schools, then everyone.
The more I read….I have to say I’m impressed that Zuckerberg stumbled onto something so popular (I’m sure he’ll be well paid for it). I’ll certainly argue that initially it was geared towards college students (not teens and not working adults - I was wrong there). I’m sure once the big $$$ got into the mix, they shifted the plans toward better demographics.
From Facebook Growth Regions and Gender Split, it goes on to explain that Facebook is expanding faster in other countries that the % of US population utilizing the app is declining (just growing at a slower rate than overseas - no surprise there). Also from the article “With a commanding share of college-age users in its home country, U.S. growth has been strongest among working age users (26-59). I was expecting stronger growth in the teen market (13-17), but teens remain the slowest growing group in the U.S. “.
My final conclusion is that I’m incorrect in believing that Facebook was geared towards profit (working adults) and the teen is incorrect in believing it was geared towards teens. Zuckerberg was focused on college students. Facebook’s current focus is on Everyone over the age of 13. Their fastest growing demographics are adults and overseas (maybe because those are the smallest - I don’t know). However, I’ve read a few books on chasing “cool” and when everyone has a Facebook page, the “cool” people (whatever demographic they are) will move to something else.
Hopefully, I’ll get a few responses in opposition or support.
