The number of people who visit Facebook has been leveling off over the past few months in the U.S., and even dipped by about 800,000 individuals in January. According to the latest stats from comScore, Facebook attracted 33.9 million unique visitors in January, 2008, down 2 percent from 34.7 million in December, 2007. Maybe all that friend spam has something to do with the decline. Will the Facebook fatigue get worse, or is this just a temporary dip?
Worldwide, Facebook is still doing fine. It grew 3 percent in January over December, attracting 100.7 million unique visitors. (MySpace had 109.3 million visitors worldwide, up 2 percent month-over-month. And in the U.S., it was slightly down as well from 68.9 million visitors in December, 2007 to 68.6 million in January, 2008. Despite its larger size, though, MySpace lost fewer visitors in the U.S. than Facebook did).
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all fads fade, now is the perfect time to go pitch that new social network you have in mind
It had to happen at some point.
I suspect the facebook / myspace / fill-in-the-social-nework-blank chart will be pretty close to the AOL chart as time goes on.
“I suspect the facebook / myspace / fill-in-the-social-nework-blank chart will be pretty close to the AOL chart as time goes on.”
I concur. Social networking is becoming decentralized now more than ever before and the niche sites aren’t worth a whole lot.
I think that the whole thing with the facebook fund, the advertising platform, ect… didn’t really help. It was like, oh, here’s x, y, z
…. oh, but not really.
oh, but maybe
…. but not really.
I think a lot of people left because they didn’t follow through on a lot of what they said.
I dunno, that chart is a bit misleading…the summer break traffic decline is normal and the dip last month also seems to coincide with the winter break. I know FB has expanded well beyond colleges I’d still bet that the majority of its active daily traffic are from high school and college students.
-Wayne
If they have to increase revenue without increasing visitors the user experience is all downhill from here.
Facebook is now allowing users to completely delete their profiles if need be. A few will drop off because of this, but it should alleviate some fears that Facebook will somehow use your info against your wishes to make money with it:
http://www.statesman.com/busin.....ebook.html
A good move.
How do Hi5 and Orkut compare? I’d be curious how much of this is the adoption curve in the US/Western Europe vs. worldwide.
Social networking will not die.
For many it serves a purpose - keeping in contact with friends or a group of interests. However, many are out there just to spend time, with no real or useful purpose and they will be the ones who will be or already are getting bored with it.
My guess is that they are causing this decline.
Zuck: sell it now, man!
Everyone i know is hardly writing on walls, poking, looking up old friends anymore.
That whole app spam thing pissed off alot of users, when you chat to people about facebook they normally start with ‘Those fucking stupid applications keep emailing me all day…’
Texas hold em poker is the worst, the makers of that must have a side line in viagra spam because there so fucking good at it.
Could be some bad blood from the Beacon Fiasco.
I know I basically stopped using FB after that.
I’m sick of facebook, I used to use it a lot more. It’s just a time-sink and is less useful to me then it was.
The clock is ticking for a monetization model. Otherwise FB will just become the flavor of the month.
My favorite posts on TC are the excuses (i.e. winter breaks)…… I would argue that kids would spend more time because they are not attending classes and have more time to fart around.
My nephew who uses MySpace was spending more hours on the website during Christmas vacation than during a regular week.
I hate to agree with Ballmer. But, yes this is a fad. Of course he got suckered into dumping $240M at a silly valuation. Bless his heart!
Hmm , I think at the very least, this (might) show that the breakneck pace of growth is over for FB. Which means they will need to make inroads ….
BTW - MikeT is right:
“Social networking will not die.
For many it serves a purpose - keeping in contact with friends or a group of interests. However, many are out there just to spend time, with no real or useful purpose and they will be the ones who will be or already are getting bored with it.”
Indeed, the casual users are about done at this point. Also, there’s the economy to consider. Would you spend time on FB and others, making money for someone else, or would you be better off starting your own network on Ning, or your own blog, and start building something that’s all yours???
With OpenSocial on Ning, you don’t even have to sacrifice usability, or the 3 FB apps that you actually like. As opposed to deleting 5000 Zombie notices every day.
I think niche social networks are going to become more popular. I for one don’t like having ex’s from 3-4 years ago seeing all my latest activities, which is the case with facebook. I cannot limit what they can see because then I look like a jerk.
I posted to Ingram’s blog that almost everyone I know who has teenage kids has a myspace and facebook account just to monitor their kids usage on the sites. They’re hardly ideal “customers.” And, outside silicon valley and technology companies, a lot of people I know can’t/don’t use social networking sites at work, so more just a way to keep in touch with friends.
Anecdotally, it seems the audience may be skewing increasingly female. I’d love to see if that’s universally true.
Traffic slowdown + Massive IT spending in 2008 + Underperforming Revenue = really BAD 2009! These guys will crash in 2009! Heard it here first!
I have tried to understand the appeal of these SN sites and I still don’t get it. Gee I can put up a page with pictures of me and all my (insert SN site name) “friends.” I keep reading about VCs throwing millions at .coms that boast the latest ways to connect with your (insert SN site name) “friends.”
This whole SN craze reminds me of the the first bubble. Of course I thought (prayed) reality TV was a fad that would die out. I suspect that people will tire of SN sites at some point.
Totally agree with Jim. I take a contrarian view on Facebook and do not believe in their long term viability.
“It’s just a time-sink and is less useful to me then it was.”
This maybe the dumbest sentence every written.
facebook hype is over, the beacon did not deliver, ads do not work. spammy apps killed whole taste of facebook, now 75% of my newsfeed is app spam.
Look at Jan 2007 in the graphs. Same exact trend as we are seeing in Jan 2008, followed by growth in Feb/March 2007.
The zenith of the hype was Microsoft’s $240 million investment for 1.6% stakes in Facebook. People flocked to the site to see what the big deal was about and got nothing but spam.
Microsoft launched a hostile takeover of Yahoo, so people took a second (or third, or fourth) look at Yahoo, and concluded that Yahoo is still a big old turkey.
The subtext of this story is probably about Microsoft’s “vision”.
I have added everyone I could possibly add. 900 people from all my past action…. We got all caught up… Now what?
Whether the stats tell an accurrate picture or not, Facebook Fatigue and Myspace Malaise are widespread infections. With Myspace I connected with friends I had not seen since my punk rock days which was a great and wonderful thing. Facebook well…. I was in a new relationship when I got on there and when it ended all my friends knew before I told them because my status changed, that added whammy to the bummer. Now I have over 700 notifications to delete, mostly from chicks in the UK, lol. This would be good time for stupid ass Tribe to get their shit together but from what I hear that’s as likely as no one catching an STD at Burning Man.
Nice to see there was no attempt to spin the numbers around in Facebook’s favor.
Clicking through the link I half expected to see a litany of excuses explaining how Facebook was really growing fast as heck and really was worth 15 billion dollars (the kids were on christmas break, so these stats don’t count)
But, no! The Facecruch team just presented the numbers. I didn’t walk away from the post wondering where you keep your signed Zuckerberg photo (seriously, is it on the nightstand?)
Will wonders never cease?
Or are you guys bailing on Facebook?
If that’s the case, the question is- who will you endlessly fawn over next?
I don’t think its fatigue, just that its growth is levelling off. Plus some people joined up just to see what its about, then left as they don’t normally use the internet much. From my experience, 95% of my friends have joined up to it in the last 6 months, and 80% continue to be regular users.
I find sites like TC to be about dumbing down the way people think because you don’t add any insight you just regurgitate the obvious.
The question is “why do we have social networks.” SN’s are a stepping stone to the future of the web one in which we move from search to discovery. In the real world we have friends who know more about cars, music, kids entertainers etc. and we tap them for knowledge discovery rather than search blindly for information.
SN’s are about the same thing. We are in the high school phase of SN where we have just joined and want to be friends with everyone but as we mature and progress we find our true friends and and niche social network in school.
Give it a few years and we will unlink for the 500+ “friends” we have and get stronger links to real people we want to connect with. FB/Myspace/Bebo etc are fads and will be replaced it might take a few years yet but it wil happen.
It must be a slow news day for the big boys when a normal cycle of user traffic makes it to the main page
(http://www.winextra.com/2008/02/22/social-network-shrinkage-blame-mother-nature/)
yea, FB reeks of something that could easily be seen as a novelty with diminishing returns. that microsoft cap certainly looks lofty now and i wonder if marc will be looked back with remorse for turning down y!
Hands up those of you who remember the crawling slinky? How about the firmer water-bed? What about the hula hoop - sold over 60 million in 1958. Poodle Skirts? Sock Hops? 3-D Movies? The Conical Bra (I know Madonna does), Beatniks? Pet rock? The Macarena? Flared Pants? Hot Pants? Leg Warmers? Yep - all fads, every last one of them.
Andy: don’t compare communication with just things.
SNs are a fad - yes, but they are also a new form of communication, which is here for hundreds of thousands of years. They may evolve, but they are here to stay.
Finally the fall begins for an overly hyped social network.
I wager everyone calling Facebook a fad is over 40. (and most likely has no social life)
The value was Myspace for 1/2 billion $. Myspace has made itself indispensable to the music industry - facebook struggles to find relevance beyond the photo app., social networking component. they need to profitably service a market - one that’s theirs to loose is college students.
They were/are? indispensable to college students (staggering numbers here) but instead of locking in that vertical with expanded services they went horizontal for more eyeballs - was this the right strategy? How does this effect their ability to monetize? What is a commonality or common interest amongst Facebook users today? … Pirates (arghh)
I agree with Discover, SN’s are about discovering information in a more efficient and trusting way. Finding opinions on anything from someone you trust works much better than randomly searching websites. I myself am currently working on an informational website for college students that purely aims at sharing knowledge of college lifestyle rather than just being social. I find it much more useful.
“I wager everyone calling Facebook a fad is over 40. (and most likely has no social life)”
Shoot and score.
The real question is how bad does Zuckerberg feel for turning down the $1bn offer when he had it. I don’t see an IPO happening anytime soon and I don’t see the valuation going anywhere near what they first predicted.
Sorry Richie. I am much younger than 40 but old enough to vividly remember GeoCities. The buzz around them was similar except we used to call it “community” not “social”. The jargon’s better now but the fad remains the same. Facebook is a good idea — and I like the business but the valuation is a joke and NOT sustainable. If they had a very bright future their Chief Revenue Officer wouldn’t have left yesterday — that kind of stuff simply doesn’t happen without a good reason.
I’ve been sick of facebook for a long time, and all these apps made it even worse. Now half the time, the pages either don’t load or crash your browser alltogether.
I’m not ready to declare that “the sky is falling” on FaceBook. Of course, there will be attrition, as with any site. Old people will leave, new people will come.
As with any fast-growing site, there’s going to come a time where you “just about” saturate your exposure, and adoption starts to level off. Call me crazy, but I think this is all that’s happening here.
Maybe people finally realize that Social Networks are lame. Maybe they have been slowly migrating back to, god forbid, face to face interactions.
Thoughts???
Totally agree, bisbrandt. My point is in relation to their valuation, which, in my opinion, doesn’t make any sense and will actually hurt their new employees who must have shares with a strike price in the billions of dollars — a ridiculous level for a company that has proven little financially.
Friendster: 2002-2003
MySpace: 2004-2005
Facebook: 2006-2008
There’s a pattern to social networking sites. The only question is who is going to replace Facebook and become the next billionaire. Maybe it is not one site, but a bunch of niche sites for people that like different things, SkiSpace for people that want a social network for skiing and imeem for people who want one based on music etc.
thats fine deleo, but if myspace died three years ago then why does it still have the most users and activity out of all of them?
Yeah, I completely agree regarding the valuation. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but it does give one pause as to whether or not there was more than just FaceBook being considered when it was done. For the valuation to be that high, it’s almost as if someone was trying to put value and justification into a market that hasn’t yet earned it.
older people don’t use as much/ and eventually let’s face it they die. The younger kids I know are all on myyearbook.com, so if they’re already entrenched in 1 SN then why would they move to another? They’d only move if their friends moved. So I’d be cautious about saying that newer people will continue to drive growth.
I used to *love* going to Facebook. Now I vary between *hating* going to Facebook and merely tolerating. I still go for certain specific purposes but the App thing is such a pain to deal with. My guess is that when all is said in done the whole Facebook app thing is going to be looked at as one of the largest value subtraction exercises in history…and not because there aren’t good apps/app developers, etc. but rather because Facebook refuses to give people the opportunity to avoid/block apps if they seem them as more annoying than useful.