Is that '25 Things' meme driving Facebook growth?

(Credit: Compete.com)

Unless you have been inhabiting the underground bunker formerly occupied by Dick Cheney, you've probably seen loads of press coverage over a "25 Things About Me" Internet meme that was spreading on Facebook. Basically, members would create a Facebook "note" containing 25 facts about themselves, and then "tag" 25 friends encouraging them to do the same.

Yes, it was a bona fide phenomenon, but I avoided writing about it, because I thought the whole thing was...dumb. Internet memes of that nature have been around since goodness knows when. Breathless press hype over it seemed a tad silly.

But here's something legitimately interesting. Analytics firm Compete.com says that there may actually have been a boost to Facebook traffic as a result of "25 Things," at least in the U.S.: 60 percent more Facebook profiles were created in January than in December. That's not surprising, because Facebook still requires a user account to access all its content--curious newcomers who read about "25 Things" would need to register for accounts in order to explore it.

More noticeably, U.S.-based traffic to Facebook's "notes," normally one of the social network's quieter features, skyrocketed. Four times more visitors than usual hit up the notes feature in January, according to Compete, with 28 percent of Facebook's U.S. users checking them out. (The wildly popular photo-album feature usually draws 60 percent of visitors, for comparison.)

The caveat is that Facebook continues to grow fast and so some of this could be attributed to natural growth rather than "25 Things" momentum. That said, Facebook's U.S. growth has long since started to stabilize--three-quarters of its new users now come from overseas.

Compete has said that its analysts will be posting a blog entry about this later in the week, ideally with some more insight into just how much those annoying "25 Things" lists really did catch on. I've also pinged Facebook to see if they have any internal numbers on the topic.

Here's what'll be interesting to see, at least from my perspective: Will this mean that the newfound popularity of "notes" will last? I post photos, links, and other share-able items to my Facebook profile all the time, but I think I've written a Facebook note a total of once (to alert my friends list that I'd lost all their phone numbers in a personal-electronics mishap). Note-writing always struck me as something that was a little bit too promiscuous for the mainstream Facebook user, the sort of thing that navel-gazing, overshare-prone Twitterers would spring for but which didn't fit in quite as well with the directory-like nature of the social network.

Guess I was wrong. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, after all, likes to say that Facebook has incrementally made the Web's masses more comfortable with sharing more and more information. The success of "25 Things," consequently, must be one of his great triumphs. And now he knows all these useless facts about so many millions of people.

Heaven forbid: Facebook notes could be like a gateway drug to blogging for everyone.

This post was expanded at 9:51 a.m. PT.

[8301]

Well, it is annoying, but at least it's not a chain letter (in the traditional sense, anyway).

Now, cut and paste this comment to 3,592 people in 41 seconds or undead vampire gremlins will swarm to you and eat your pancreas.

[yanchineseguy]

8301 - you beat me to the joke FTW.

[karpenterskids]

haha



And come to think of it...THAT'S why the last 7 years of my life have sucked!
I didn't repost a myspace bulletin that I opened! :0

[tipoo_]

40 SECONDZ LEFT!

[yanchineseguy]

Sounds like a new avenue of spam or chain mail.

Now, send this to 25 friends within 25 minutes or something bad will happen in 25 days.

[loose_screw]

The idea isn't very original but I agree that it does seem to be pretty popular. I've ignored the "invites" from my friends on facebook so far, but then again I restrict my circle of friends to only close personal personal friends instead of adding any odd acquaintance, so they probably know me well enough that this would be an exercise in futility anyway.

[bfrench1]

I would be more likely to attribute the growth in new accounts to the weakening job market. As more jobs are lost, I believe folks who have never had a reason to use Facebook may be turning to this and other such social sites as a means for networking with the intent of finding new contacts for job leads... And not to mention to kill some of the newly found spare time on their hands.

[sghanna]

I found the 'gateway drug to blogging' particularly funny...I'm afraid you may be correct!

[iff2mastamatt]

I just joined in January.

[sanenazok]

Wow I work and so I had not heard of this. I guess school kids drive traffic to these sites.

[ThatIsWhatSheSaid]

I hate that infernal list! I can't believe how resilient it's been! I don't know what made this list so much more appealing to people compared to the myriad other chain letter-esque things out there, but it drives me batty!

And yes, gateway drug to blogging was a nice little quip. About 1% of blogs contain anything insightful or useful. As for the rest... like I really need to hear about you going to the store today and finding a deal of Cup 'o Noodles?

[pase121]

LMAO!

[logangreer]

Was there a giant journalist memo that went out saying "please work the word 'meme' into every article you can, if you don't you'll have bad luck for the next five years"?

[caffemacchiato]

Who needs a bona fide list. I'll take a mala fide list anytime.

[trescrepu]

Someone please kill the "25 Things..." phenomenon. MySpace is loaded with that kind of noise; one of the reasons I avoided engaging on that unusable site.

[blusky08]

Social websites are more than just a waste of time. They are voluntary profiling sites--one more tool geared towards making people feel comfortable relinquishing their rights to privacy.

[cnet-og]

I think social sites are an efficient means of cataloging one's mistakes early on in life, only to later be brought up at some critical and unfortunate time in said life (e.g. job interview, appointment to high-ranking government office, etc.), thus hindering the road to success.

Gotta love the masses' willingness to photograph, video, or otherwise document egregious acts of stupidity, and subsequently publicize them.

[jture]

It's very simple: if you don't like the "25 things" fad, you don't have to participate. I don't, and I don't.

[ace10134]

ATTENTION:

Facebook just changed their TERMS OF SERVICE.

They now OWN EVERYTHING YOU POST

Even IF YOU DELETE your ACCOUNT, they will STILL KEEP YOUR INFORMATION.

I guess this is already in effect, but I would delete your account as soon as possible, it doesn't look like you would want to be part of facebook anymore.

This was reported by neowin.com at http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/02/16/facebook-we-own-your-content-forever-and-ever

Thanks for reading

[nosajarta]

Love the comments, but see if you all like 25 Things About Me:

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=63266983833