Just Another 24 Hours

Finger pointing at China won’t get us anywhere

Daniel Young — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 03:13:13 +0000

Are we Westerners in any position to lecture the Chinese on how they should run their economy?

I don’t think so.

Its a hot topic given the fact that the Chinese economy has a healthy growth outlook.

Western Europe is deep in the doldrums, the UK is about to go into its third recession in five years or something.

It’s like we Westerners were all gung-ho to take advantage of globalisation when it suited us.

But now the tables have turned.

And power is shifting.

China gets criticised for not balancing the books when it comes to trade.

The countries leveling this charge against the Chinese should be looking at the opportunities to export to China.

That’s the only solution to a trade deficit. They have to make their economy and its output attractive to what will soon by the biggest economy in the world.

There’s also the constant back stabbing about China’s human rights policies.

As if the West has that sorted.

Western systems have concentrated wealth into the hands of the 1 per cent during the last 50 years while the Chinese lifted 600million people out of poverty.

The powers that be in the UK and other Westerns economies should be providing creative solutions that will drive economic growth over the long term.

Not pointing the finger at China and being all holier than thou.

I’m ashamed by the hypocrisy of the West. Short termism and diversionary tactics will get us nowhere.

This BBC podcast (The Forum) provides an excellent example of the sort of sermons that Western experts are pumping out without providing anything constructive on the home front.

Could Facebook drop 96k Sydneysiders in a week?

Daniel Young — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:27:20 +0000

I checked the Facebook numbers for 18-24 year olds in Sydney again today.

(OK yeah I need to get a life – fair cop)

But the startling thing is that there is another drop in users – just five days after I last checked.

Down by 96,500!

Here are the figures:

November 11: 1,979,840
December 11: 1,149,060
December 18: 1,059,700
December 23: 963,200

Facebook’s advertising platform estimations can’t be that volatile – can they…

WTF is going on.

On December 18, I thought I would double check these numbers against other cap cities. Today’s numbers are in red.

Adelaide: 250,000 –> 250,100
Melbourne: 915,160 –> 915,160
Perth: 379,420 –> 379,400
Brisbane: 507,400 –> 507,400

Basically flat in a week – so why is Sydney trending down over 6 weeks?

Here is my first post in this startling series.

Facebook data suggests that 18-24 year olds in Sydney are leaving the social network

Daniel Young — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 02:57:47 +0000

I have been monitoring Facebook’s Australian user data.

Firstly with this post on November 11 and then this update on December 11.

There was one really notable thing about the numbers that Facebook’s own advertising platform produced.

Within a month, Facebook told me that the number of 18-24 years olds in Sydney had fallen by 830k.

Such a massive drop that it didn’t sound right. Surely, enough people would have heard anecdotally about a shift like that.

So I checked in again today and the numbers suggest another step down.

Here are the numbers for that specific segment again:

November 11: 1,979,840
December 11: 1,149,060
December 18: 1,059,700

Down by an additional 89,360 in a week!!

I have consistently included ‘cities within 80kms’.

Could this suggest that Facebook’s user profile is ageing and fewer 18 years old are signing up to the service or growing into it? Would that explain these numbers, I don’t think so.

Looks like a trend – could it be?

Here are the numbers today for the m/f 18-24 age groups in following cities:

Adelaide: 250,000
Melbourne: 915,160
Perth: 379,420
Brisbane: 507,400

Is Facebook flat lining in Australia or even worse losing users

Daniel Young — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 05:21:16 +0000

In this post on November 11, I ran a few advertising queries on Facebook to see if the social network continues to grow. The weird thing is that four out of the six segments I tested are exactly the same.

The notable thing is that the sixth segment (the youngest group that I looked at) has declined significantly.

Nov 11: Australia – age 18 to 64 male and female = 9,290,380
Dec 11: 9,290,380 Flat

Nov 11: Australia – age 18-24 male = 2,048,140
Dec 11: 2,048,140 Flat

Nov 11: Australia – age 18-24 female = 2,096,240
Dec 11: 2,096,240 Flat

Nov 11: Australia – age 25-45 male = 3,091,620
Dec 11: 3,091,620 Flat

Nov 11: Australia – age 24-45 female = 3,560,300
Dec 11: 3,563,300 Up by 3,000

Nov 11: Sydney – age 18-24 = 1,979,840
Dec 11: 1,149,060 Down by circa 800k

Either I mucked up my search the first time around or something weird is happening. Facebook couldn’t lose 800,000 Sydney users in one month could it?

Facebook does include the caveat that numbers are estimations only but still it seems strange that four out of six numbers are exactly the same. Obviously the social network can’t grow exponentially for ever. How would Facebook handle the PR around a user exodus do you think… that would be an interesting comms challenge?

Back in one month.

Houses of Parliament by Google 3D Warehouse

Daniel Young — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 23:47:46 +0000

You can visit the Google 3D Warehouse here.

Facebook Australia – Which ways are the numbers going?

Daniel Young — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 10:55:29 +0000

A little experiment to see which way Facebook’s numbers are going in Australia.

Today – 11 November 2001

Australia – age 18 to 64 male and female = 9,290,380

Australia – age 18-24 male = 2,048,140

Australia – age 18-24 female = 2,096,240

Australia – age 25-45 male = 3,091,620

Australia – age 24-45 female = 3,560,300

Sydney – age 18-24 = 1,979,840

Watch this space – back in a month.

NEWS FLASH: WE ARE THE UNREPRESENTED GENERATION

Daniel Young — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:39:45 +0000

The media has dutifully fragmented into an infinite number of pieces yet we live under a dichotomy. Politically, we are the unrepresented generation.

Can we really rely on social media, Google or Facebook to drive change?

Daniel Young — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:59:30 +0000

When social media came into being it generated a significant groundswell of people that believed that it would be a positive thing for society and community.

By forcing businesses to become more transparent and distributing the means of media production it was argued that our society would change for the better.

This point of view probably peaked in 2006/7 but bubbled below the surface for a lot longer than that.

I fully subscribe to this point of view. I still do.

But there are doubts and questions in my mind.

2011 hasn’t done anything to allay my fears.

Since 2008 we’ve seen major abuses of poor by power elites and institutions in almost every sphere of our existence. Yes, these abuses have been exposed but take the global financial crisis as an example and you can see that little has actually changed despite the exposure of the wrong doers.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Occupy movement spring up but I don’t believe that any Government is actually really listening. Yes, they have a voice. Yes, they’ve gained some media coverage for their struggle and point of view but to what end. Will anything really change? The strong arm tactics employed by the police in the UK, Australia and USA would suggest that the traditional institutions still have the right to operate in the way that they see fit.

Taking a slight tangent here the one thing that really concerns me is this.

The companies that are really benefiting from social media are not complying or furthering the principles of openness and transparency upon which their industry is supposedly based. Companies like Google and Facebook are in fact operating in very shady and opaque ways when it comes to managing information and data.

What hope is there for greater transparency in society when the companies at the forefront of social media are acting in this way?

Marx argued that religion is the opiate of the people. Will social media one day assume this moniker?

Added Wikileaks fund raising pop up to this blog

Daniel Young — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:36:29 +0000

A collection of big corporations have mounted an financial blockade against Wikileaks – freezing all channels of funding. The companies are Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, Western Union and Bank of America. Assange has referred to this as an: “arbitary and unlawful financial blockade”. It has been in effect since December 2010.

Wikileaks has been forced to stop publishing in order to focus its efforts on beating the blockade.

It’s a scary world we live in. More from The Sydney Morning Herald.

On Board with Guy Martin at the Isle of Man TT (Honda 1000) via Dad

Daniel Young — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 07:43:40 +0000