The big news of the week is Facebook’s $3 Billion offer to buy Snapchat. That’s 4 times as much as they paid for photo-sharing service Instagram just 18 months ago. News of Facebook’s offer for Snapchat, which Snapchat has politely declined, coincided with an article in Forbes about Facebook’s challenge in staying relevant with teens.
The Forbes article, “Here’s Where Teens Are Going Instead Of Facebook,” details Facebook’s drop in active usage among teens. A key Facebook executive admitted, “We did see a drop in daily users, partly among younger teens.” Beyond Facebook’s own admission, a recent study of teens in 30 countries confirmed the trend. The drop in teen usage in the Netherlands was the highest at 52%. In the US, teens reported a 16% drop in usage of Facebook.
Replacing the world’s largest social network with teens are various mobile services. The big gainer was Chinese chat service WeChat, followed by others like Vine, Flickr and – wait for it – Instagram and Snapchat. Read all about Facebook’s teen problem here.
– Pat Welsh