Most of the time, the early adopter set is a super-geeky and tech savvy bunch that’s wormed its way into beta testing a service through high-powered connections, scrounging for invitations on blogs, or a similar tactic. However, today’s most popular social network actually began by locking early adopters out– only allowing .edu-registered college students to join. As a result, two very different types of users have arisen within Facebook. Not only do these two groups use the service differently, but what’s more, they’re often unaware of one another, almost like two communities stranded on two nearby desert islands.
Who are first-generation Facebook users?
When Facebook left its Harvard-only beta version around 2004’s midpoint, college undergrads gobbled it up. My high school graduation in 2005 put me in only the second year of Facebook users, but already the service had picked up an enormous amount of steam. Students were using it to organize events, send messages, and more.
One of the first references to Facebook “generations” I came across was by a Read/Write Web article by Sarah Perez entitled, “How to make Facebook useful again.” She quotes an apt passage from Fred Wilson’s A VC blog:
I saw my oldest daughter get an invite to a party on Facebook, she accepted it, and then went to look at her accepted invite page. It was her social calendar, every party she plans to attend in the next two months is there. She noticed she had another event that night and then switched her acceptance to tentative. She uses Facebook the way I use Outlook.
Fred Wilson, a tech-savvy venture capitalist and likely an early adopter himself, found himself surprised at the utility Facebook offers this first-generation. Looking further, he probably would have noticed other behaviors typical of a first-gen Facebook user:
- using the Facebook message system as frequently as e-mail
- using the Events calendar for discrete real-world events
- accessing friends’ profiles for information, not activity
- tracking friends’ birthdays, relationship statuses, and more
- disliking change
As Facebook for the first-generation user is grounded firmly in real-life interactions, it provides a super glue of sorts between the on- and off-line. Early adopters don’t get this– not even Robert Scoble. Analysts even have the gall to call Facebook Social advertisements a failure without taking into account the larger variations between users.
Today’s Facebook users
The Facebook users of today are a dramatically different crowd. Individuals coming late to the game once Facebook opened to the public, online social networking fans, and even some graduating high schoolers show dramatic differences in behavior when they’re on this popular social networking site. What we college students that “grew up” with Facebook don’t see often comes as an enormous surprise: people really dislike it. That’s why talented tech bloggers write articles like this to try and convince the angry mob that it actually serves a purpose.
Some behaviors common to second-generation Facebook users:
- being just as likely to “friend” a real-life acquaintance or stranger
- utilizing a larger number of Facebook Applications
- a much smaller friend count
- a decreased use of all features besides the share function
To this group of Facebook users, the service is dull, uneventful, and often unrewarding.
A lesson for the future?
As hard as bloggers like Corvida attempt to bridge the gap between generations, it’s likely that the first-generation crowd will continue to dwindle until it’s dwarfed by this second group. As Facebook loses its connection to real life, users will return to it less and less. This all makes an interesting case study for anyone releasing any sort of web service: who you release your software to first can make an enormous difference. For Facebook, it meant the difference between an integral service for being socially involved online to, well, just another social network.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t believe you found a way to link to one of my old posts! Sweet!
This was a great post Andy! Loved it and completely agree with it 100%.
Hehe, Corvida, only because I’m writing on an older topic! It felt particularly timely for me, though, since I’ve been making the transition back to campus for the semester and have been reminded, more often than usual, how vital Facebook is to so many of its users.
Thanks for your approval!
I totally agree with you about the different ways each Facebook generation uses FB and adapts to its evolution. I started using Facebook is the fall of ‘04, when it had just opened to colleges outside of Harvard. I (and many of my college friends) had FB before I used MySpace, YouTube and Gmail. Even though I’ve been out of college for two years, I still use Facebook in the same ways I did then. It is my number way of keeping up with my friends (from high school, college and workplaces) whether I’m looking at their recent pictures, wishing them happy birthday, sending messages or knowing when they make job/life changes.
I also use Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and many other sites now to aggregate my content, share ideas, and network. It seems awkward to me when an online contact (someone who is not a personal acquaintance) wants to befriend me on Facebook. I usually will accept though, and automatically add those people to my limited profile list. My job (social media coordinator) and online savvy allow me to blend my first generation habits with some of those attributed to the second generation (namely, importing my activity on other sites and turning my Wall into a lifestream).
As Facebook continues to evolve and update, I hope the leaders keep in mind their initial purpose for the site. If they don’t, as you noted, FB will lose its connection to real life, and become irrelevant or no fun for most involved. Good post, thanks!
Andy, great post. I have been thinking about this since FB opened up to everyone. Like Lauren, I started using FB in the Fall on ‘04 when I was a soph. at Fordham University. I remember when Facebook was “www.thefacebook.com”, before the bought the “facebook.com” domain. I remember when FB wasn’t open to every college and on the main page they listed the schools it was available too. I remember searching for my high school classmates from Indiana and only being able to find 10 other kids on FB. Back when the only picture that you could have was your profile. Do the “early adopters” remember that?
I like how you point out what FB was originally used for. People forget that now. FB was there to keep track of relationships that already existed in the real world, not to create new ones with digital people. And while there is no right or wrong way to use the service, I find it funny when someone tries to friend me who doesn’t know me. FB is my “personal” space for people I actually know. If you don’t know me and want to friend me, do it on Twitter.
While I see your point about how the people who first started to use the service will become outnumbered by new, I don’t think they will turn away anytime soon. FB has become ingrained in our lives. So much so that my buddy gave up FB for Lent earlier in the year. FB is like your AOL screen name, it never really goes away.
I so damn agree with you there. The way I see it is that I am in the demographic that never gave a crap about MySpace, so when Facebook came out it was somewhat new to us. That and it was only (initially) only for College kids. When it became large enough, it started being used as sporadically as it is now by kids that grew up on MySpace.
So this day, after a few years of FBin’, I have about 5 applications, most of which are RSS based and not used at all.
Facebook is seeing the same thing that happened to Digg. Techies first caught on, and then popular media ruined it.
I think that the utility of FB, such as the outlook example you mention above, depends on how much on ones life is within that FB walled garden. The tools within FB are only useful when talking to others in that space.
I sync my FB events to iCal because I need to be able to track events that are arranged by other means. I use Adium with multiple IM networks to chat to different friends, rather than rely on the FB IM. I use email rather than FB messages because I can more sure these will be picked up (especially for those with mobile email).
FB is a good way to find and communicate with other FB users, but it is a closed system, which perhaps explains why users in closed environments (Like a university) use it differently to those of us with existing, different social networks.
@James
I never thought about it that way. I currently use Google Calendar, but have only been doing so for a bit. I am getting a Mac soon (a week or so) so I will look into the iCal program.
As for syncing? FB is very closed, but using third party techniques and RSS applications you can auto-copy everything yo do to FB. As in, Ping.fm sends all my micro-blog posts around the micro-web and it can also send to FB. As for my own website, I have an RSS feed in there.
This is why I wish Orkut hit off better than it has, Google is a whore for OSS