Month: January 2014

Facebook still a firm adult favorite, Twitter falls behind

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Ruby Karp may have written,”I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook,” but according to a new study, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network remains the platform of choice for adults, with 71 percent using the website in the US.

A new study by the Pew Research Center found that 73 percent of online adults are now a member of a social network, and Facebook remains the dominant platform. Its survey of 6,010 US adults over the age of 18 found a slight increase in Facebook users in 2013, up from 67 percent in 2012.

However, the Pew research also found that more adults used professional networking site LinkedIn and photo pin-up site Pinterest than Twitter. Some 22 percent of those surveyed said they were on LinkedIn, and 21 percent had Pinterest accounts – but only 18 percent were on Twitter. This marks a change from 2012, when more adults used Twitter (16 percent) than Pinterest (15 percent).

“While Facebook is popular across a diverse mix of demographic groups, other sites have developed their own unique demographic user profiles,” senior researcher Aaron Smith and research assistant Maeve Duggan wrote in the report.

(Read more: Facebook monthly active users)

“For example, Pinterest holds particular appeal to female users (women are four times as likely as men to be Pinterest users), and LinkedIn is especially popular among college graduates and internet users in higher income households.”

Looking at the metric of monthly active users, Facebook leads the pack, with 1.19 billion. LinkedIn and Twitter have 259 million and 232 million, respectively.

But there are concerns of a growing disillusionment among teenagers with Facebook, as Twitter and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) grow in popularity. When it reported earnings in October, Facebook CFO David Ebersman admitted that the daily activity among younger teens has declined.

The Pew Survey noted that Twitter and Instagram were more appealing to younger adults, urban dwellers, and non-whites, and that there was a “substantial overlap” between Twitter and Instagram users.

(Read more: Who’s viewing your Instagram, and profiting from it?)

This mirrors other recent findings, such as those by U.S.investment bank Piper Jaffray, which conducted its semi-annual “Taking Stock With Teens” project back in October.
It found that Twitter was fast becoming the most important social media network among younger users, and was “eclipsing Facebook, followed closely by Instagram.” Thepopularity of Facebook was waning among teens, the bank said, with 23 percent citing it as the most important, down from 33 percent six months ago and 42 percent a year ago.

Indeed, in her August op-ed on news site Mashable, Karp wrote: “Part of the reason Facebook is losing my generation’s attention is the fact that there are other networks now. When I was 10, I wasn’t old enough to have a Facebook. But a magical thing called Instagram had just come out.”

Professor Daniel Miller, who is working on University College London’s Social Networking Sites and Social Science Research Project, found a similar trend.

He wrote that among a small survey of 16 to 18 year olds,”Facebook is not just falling, it is basically dead, finished, kaput, over,” and that many users will only stay on the website as a “mode of family interaction because their parents and even grandparents are starting to see it as almost an obligation to keep in touch through Facebook.”

Still, Gregory Galant, the CEO of Muck Rack told CNBC in October: “I think Facebook’s going to be around for a very long time, not because their current product can last the test of time but because they’re unusually adept at evolving.”

Indeed, the Pew Survey stressed that Facebook is still the platform that engages its users the best.

“In addition to being the most commonly used social networking platform of the five we measured, Facebook also has high levels of engagement among its users,” the report noted. “63 percent of Facebook users visit the site at least once a day, with 40 percent doing so multiple times throughout the day.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Investors to eye riskier markets in 2014: Control Risks

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

With growth in major emerging markets set to slow in 2014, yield-hungry investors will be forced to look at riskier frontier markets like Colombia or sub-Saharan Africa, a director at global risk consultancy Control Risks told CNBC on Tuesday.

Chris Torrens, the director of global risk analysis for Europe and Africa at Control Risks, said one of 2014’s key trends would be investors looking to frontier markets – the less developed end of the investable emerging market spectrum – as established emerging markets had now “emerged” and therefore growth was waning.

(Read more: Here it is…the world’s top-performing index in 2013)

“Companies are beginning to be forced to look at what we would call frontier markets, and the opportunities are there but the risks are higher as well,” Torrens told CNBC. “So we’re thinking about sub-Saharan Africa; we’re looking at countries like Colombia, which have turned the corner after decades of civil war; we’re even looking at places like the Philippines, which previously were tough places to be operating in and which have really improved.

“So there is some optimism out there, but companies are being pushed into areas where the risks are less familiar.”

Torrens advised UK companies and other multinationals to focus on sub-Saharan Africa if looking for strong returns.

“It (sub-Saharan Africa) has been led by energy companies, they have got higher risk appetites, they are prepared to invest more heavily, but that’s been followed by financial services, by telecoms, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, so we’re pretty positive about that.”

(Read more: With or without aid:Bono’s one African economy)

However, he added: “That said, if you take the market like Nigeria, which is probably the largest economy (in sub-Saharan Africa) now, they’ve got an election coming up 2015, there’s going to be a lot of political tension arising from that. They have a Muslim extremist insurgency in the north east in the form of Boko Haram.”

Torrens argued that growth was slowing in the BRICs – the moniker coined by ex-Goldman Sachs banker Jim O’Neill to describe Brazil, Russia, India and China – but remained positive about China in 2014.

“You may have some of the biggest challenges facing that country that it’s ever faced, but you’ve got some of the smartest leaders in place who have ever been there,” he said. “So you’ve got a group of seven people leading the country, President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Keqiang, both extremely business-savvy, Western-trained, you don’t have these old Soviet technocrats you had before. There’s the ability there to deal with those problems.”

(Read more: China debt: Thebiggest ‘known, unknown’ in 2014?)

Consensus forecasts are for Chinese growth of around 7.5 percent in 2014, although Deutsche Bank sees much stronger growth at 8.6 percent and recently stated that markets were underestimating China’s growth potential.

However, London’s Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) recently said China’s economy won’t eclipse the US  until 2028, much later than some have suggested, due to both the economic strength of the US and slowdown in China.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow