techPresident - The Early Adopter Effect - Comments

Notes about the data

Fred Stutzman — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:13:57 -0400

As you note, this is self-reported data; therefore, it excludes vast parts of the Facebook demographic that chooses not to report their political affiliation. I'd challenge that this data is generalizable on that basis - yet this is still very interesting.

About political self-reporting - One's political affiliation is one of the most polarizing elements of the Facebook profile. In studies of Facebook profiles, we see that users tend to highlight and emphasize common elements - fostering norms and openness. Declaring political affiliation doesn't necessarily polarize, but there are a vast many Facebook users who put their openness to friendships before their ideology. This is obviously systematic.

What you see still poses an interesting question - why do we see this liberalizing trend among self-reporters? A network analytic approach might reveal tighter clusters among liberal-identified users; this in turn might identify that reporting liberal affiliation is a norm in these tight groups. Another explanation might be the general negative attitude towards "conservatism" as represented by President Bush. It might be interesting to correlate this data with his approval ratings.

Very interesting stuff - thank you for putting it together.

What about Libertarians?

edmondthehun — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:52:52 -0400

Very interesting data and analysis. However, I keep finding more friends on Facebook that identify themselves politically as Libertarian, the only choice besides "Apathetic" on Facebook's "Political Views" that does not fall in the typical range between "Very Liberal" and "Very Conservative." Libertarians are reported to have a larger presence on the Web anyway. Do you have any numbers and demographic analysis for that category?

Also, Facebook allows you to distinguish between "Very Liberal" or just "Liberal," and likewise for conservative. I assume the Lib and Cons numbers in the spreadsheet include both of each, respectively. If you have access to that distinction, are there any interesting demographic trends for those who identify themselves more strongly to one or the other, or is it about the same or not worth mentioning?

Regardless, I look forward to your future in-depth analysis.

Good observations

Jim Crumley — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:22:58 -0400

This is good stuff and correlates to a customer profile I did a couple of years ago for a telecom brand. Early adopters tended to be more liberal in social outlooks and consumer decision making, i.e. hybrid cars, environmentally friendly products, choice of reading matter etc. It's interesting to see that conclusion backed up by different research from a social network site.

Jim Crumley
Trio Strategies

Excellent Work

jedidiah — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 10:48:41 -0400

Thanks for doing this and thanks for the spreadsheet! This was a great read. I'll be marinating on this for a while and I look forward to your next reports on these data.

The Early Adopter Effect

Patrick Ruffini — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 10:01:27 -0400

Facebook has given us an unprecedented look inside the demographic breakdowns of its user base. For the first time, there's a model for quantifying who the early adopters on the Web are, and how they vote.

Read this post for the full data.