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Monday, June 13, 2011

Facebook Is Losing Users In The Countries Where It Took Off First

mark zuckerberg

Something strange is going on: Facebook is losing customers.

Lots of customers. According to Inside Facebook's data service, Facebook lost 6 million users in the U.S. last month, dropping from 155.2 million to 149.4 million. That's the first time U.S. numbers have dropped in more than a year.

It also lost 1.52 million users in Canada, dropping to 16.6 million -- that's an 8% drop -- and 100,000 each in the U.K., Norway, and Russia.

Total Facebook users were still up 1.7% thanks to growth in countries where the service got popular later, like Mexico and Brazil.

But big drops in the countries where Facebook first became popular can't be good news -- it suggests that there is a saturation point where people begin to burn out on the service.

Inside Facebook notes that seasonal fluctuations might be partly to blame -- for example, the end of the school year happens in June, and that might cause some college graduates to cancel their account. But Inside Facebook has also noticed that growth tends to halt once 50% usage is reached in each country.

This is also the second month in a row with slower than normal growth.

The only way Facebook can keep growing, then, is to add big new countries. Like China.

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Facebook Is Losing Users In The Countries Where It Took Off First

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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

It Took Six Weeks For The PlayBook To Sync With Mac (RIMM)

Blackberry playbook

RIM has finally updated its BlackBerry Desktop Manager for Mac, enabling PlayBook owners to sync photos, video, and other files.

We were extremely frustrated that there was no way to do this on the Mac when we first reviewed the PlayBook. If you wanted to get any media on or off the device you had to e-mail it to yourself.

Still, the Desktop Manager update isn't perfect. You can't back up or restore your device like you can with other tablets. Perhaps that will come in the next version.

You can download Desktop Manager here.

[Via CrackBerry]

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It Took Six Weeks For The PlayBook To Sync With Mac (RIMM)

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/pDU0THKfOUE/blackberry-playbook-desktop-manager-2011-6

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Top iPad Apps Show How It Took 7% Of The PC Market (AAPL, MSFT)

Steve Jobs with iPad

Market research firms may not count it as a PC, but the iPad is clearly a computer, and Apple's latest sales figures show that it's now got about 7% of what used to be the global "PC" market.

So what are all those people doing with it, other than sending email and surfing the Web?

According to Apple's list of top free and paid iPad apps, which the company released this morning via iTunes, people are using their iPad to have fun and get information from the Internet.

Popular uses include listening to and identifying music (Pandora and Soundhound), finding things to do nearby (Yelp, Flixster, Fandango), playing casual games, and reading electronic books. (Full list at the end of this post.)

They're not creating documents and spreadsheets. They're not playing fast-action twitch games that require tons of processing power (a dying market -- a lot of hardcore gamers have already switched to consoles like the Xbox 360 and PS3). They're not creating videos or recording songs.

In the past, these people might have paid $800 or more for a simple laptop that let them send and receive email, get information from the Web, and maybe download and play a few casual games. They don't need a full computer, but they still had to think about all the hassles of owning a computer, like antivirus software and OS updates.

The $499 iPad is rapidly taking this casual computing market. And when the next version comes out at perhaps half the price or less, the switch from computers will accelerate.

How big is this casual computing market? Apple -- and Microsoft -- are about to find out.

Here's Apple's list of top free iPad apps of all time: