From IT News Africa

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the inception of Mark Zuckerberg’s global social network giant Facebook. In October 2013 the Company reported financial results for the third quarter, which ended September 30, confirming its attraction of 728 million daily active users, representing a year-on-year increase of 25%. It has also built up a 1.19 billion-strong monthly active user base. However, global media reports in the beginning of 2014 speak of possible weaknesses in the social network fortress, particularly in terms of appeal to a younger demographic of users – teenagers, to be specific.

In a Cnet.com report entitled Why teens are tiring of Facebook author Jennifer Van Grove states that “Facebook has become a social network that’s often too complicated, too risky, and, above all, too overrun by parents to give teens the type of digital freedom they crave.”

However, this is not entirely accurate and the company’s popularity, in general, is on the increase in emerging markets, including Africa, say analysts and research companies.

Market analyst and CEO of World Wide Worx, Arthur Goldstuck, who says Facebook has grown dramatically in both South   Africa and in other regions of the continent. He says that based on the Company’s latest social media landscape report, in October last year Facebook had 10,8 million users in South Africa. The number would have surpassed the 11million mark today.

“The reason people think that its popularity is waning is because of stats that show that the number of teenagers on Facebook has declined…however, they haven’t paid attention to what’s been happening to Facebook over the last five years. There has been a continual shift up the age graph at Facebook and the average Facebook user is now between twenty-six and thirty years old. So all you’re seeing is the over-representation of teenagers is normalising,” says Goldstuck.

Written by Chris Tredger |Read more at IT News Africa