Facebook Isn't Trying Be Cool, Just Useful, Said COO Sheryl Sandberg

Amid reports from Facebook that fewer teens were using the social media site -- and thus that it was no longer cool -- Facebook officials, including COO Sherly Sandberg, clarified comments made by CFO David Ebersman and did a little spin doctor-ing in the process, CNET reported.

"Our best analysis on youth engagement in the US reveals that usage of Facebook among US teens overall was stable from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users, specifically among younger teens," Ebersman said, which CNET called the company's "most candid admission to date."

In an interview with the tech website AllThingsD, Sandberg contended that the comments were exaggerated and instead emphasized the stable figures from Q1 and Q2.

"So I think the reaction to that comment has been blown out of proportion. As we said on the earnings call, overall U.S. teen usage of Facebook remains stable," she said.

She also admitted that Facebook was no longer the newest thing -- it being a decade old now -- but affirmed that most teens were still logging on daily.

"That means that we're not the newest. And often, particularly in our space, newer things are shinier and cooler," Sandberg said. But "the vast majority of U.S. teens are on Facebook. And the majority of U.S. teens use Facebook almost every day."

Being so old (by tech standards) and maybe not as cool is a challenge for Facebook, but the company isn't trying to be cool, Sandberg said of Mark Zuckerberg's vision. They just want to be useful.

And that was the last question on Ebersman's controversial statistic. AllThingsD moved on to the next most pressing question: Facebook's failed acquisition of SnapChat.

Sandberg addressed this query less directly, as the interviewer noted in his secondary question, which she also mostly deflected. Basically, Sandberg positioned Facebook as the leader in a growing market of social sharing and SnapChat as part of that market. She briefly hinted at some competition between the two before switching back to the theme of growth -- accomplished, perhaps, by acquiring entities like SnapChat.