Facebook Suffers its First Drop in Unique Monthly Visitors
by Tom on February 25, 2008
in Social Networking
All through 2007 we heard an awful lot about the social networking site Facebook. It shot out of obscurity and into super stardom when it changed its registration policy to allow anyone to register. What followed was a year where everyone talked about Facebook non stop. Workers all over the country compulsively checked their accounts throughout the day. Those on the move soon discovered they could use their phones to check the latest comments on their wall. All the mainstream press reported on this phenomenon and now you can see little share this buttons at the bottom of every article alongside those from Digg and Del.icio.us.
January saw the first drop in monthly unique visitors for the site. Reports show a drop of around 5% from 8.9 million to 8.5 million (Forbes, Times). Are we bored of social networking? Or is it just we are bored of Facebook?
What has changed?
Following the buzz as always, marketers and public relations firms have invaded the blue and white pages once reserved for university students. Businesses have made Facebook user groups and adverts have appeared. There has even been some high publicity issues where adverts which were deemed inappropriate were appearing.
As if this was no bad enough, politicians are making profiles and using Facebook as a way of connecting with the younger more tech savvy potential voters. The cool factor suffers severely when Tory MPs are on a social networking site. The honesty and transparency social networks strive to create in the first place is lost when marketers and PR firms are creating and managing profiles.
The never ending creation of new applications since Facebook opened up the code to developers may also be a factor. Profiles have moved from being nicely designed, sleek, easy to use layouts to being cluttered and messy, filled with these applications, most of which offer little extra value. Examples of these include: petrolhead, likeness, vampires, werewolves, compare, growing gift, superpoke, hatching gift, pirate, mood, movies and many many more.
An interesting point to add is that as Facebook usage in the US continued to grow in January, Europe’s usage fell in line with that of the UK. The three main social networks in the UK are MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. Facebook has attracted the most users but most of those are aged 25 and over. Bebo has been the one to market most prominently to the younger demographic. Perhaps this focus on an older age group and the spread of these applications has put off Facebook users.
As far as I am concerned
We all knew Facebook would be in the news this year and the chances of it all being positive were slim. I am still a Facebook user. I know no better way of keeping in contact with friends who are scattered all over the world. I like only ever being a few clicks away from sending a message to someone even if I have not seen them for ten years. I must also admit the novelty has worn off. I do not check Facebook anywhere near as much as I used to.
Looking to the future
As the world goes online more and more there has been a focus towards catering for niches. There are many niche social networking sites such as Linked In for business networking, WAYN for those interested in travelling. One size does not fit all – but we all need a central hub with which we can maintain contact with people who do not share our interests.
Will Facebook go the way of Friends Reunited and other networks which had the buzz then lost it? Is this just a minor blip? Anyone know what the next Facebook will be? Or will Facebook make a comeback?
This is part of the inevitable social network backlash that is going to strike. People can only keep up with so much online activity, and are always looking for the hot new thing. The interesting thing will be to see how Facebook can change to adapt to a more social network savvy user base
There are many social networking services operated like http://www.orkut.com, http://www.myspace.com, http://www.facebook.com etc. Orkut.com is being operated by http://www.google.com. MySpace is an online community that lets you meet your friends’ friends. These are popular sites especially among youths. We can judge the popularity of these sites by seeing their ranking in http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?url=www.fortunehotels.in Alexa. Orkut has been steadily rising on the Alexa charts but MySpace is still significantly bigger than Orkut.com.
Steve thats pretty much the way I think it is going. Facebook is the biggest here in the UK, so it has a pretty good chance of making things work.
I had not heard of Orkut.
Myspace like you said is more popular among youths than the older generations. It will be interesting if these people continue to use myspace as they do get older, or just move on to something new.
Novelty wears off. Which is great, it means the web keeps sicking up exciting new things. Maybe next time it’ll be a social network without a shockingly awful attitude to ‘private’ data.
Orkut is big in France, I believe.
Hey Tom,
I don’t think Facebook is going anywhere for at least the next 5 years. They’ve developed a huge brand for themselves and it’s extremely difficult for another company to overthrow them because of the barriers to entry they’ve established. Facebook is the king of social networking right now and a little setback isn’t going to tank them.
Gyutae – I must say I still use Facebook as I am so established there. Once you have collected all your friends in one place, getting up and moving is a major effort. Like you say, barriers to entry are pretty high right now. There are many new startups focusing on social networks though. A network which brought together other networks would be king, but how likely is it existing networks would allow this?
Moving from facebook woudln’t be a major effort if a facebook data – to – (Open Social or similar) exporting tool was made. Which wouldn’t be very hard considering Facebooks support for apps.
Gyutae – Can you remember what the web was like 5 years ago? *Everything* can change in 5 years and tbh, I hope it does.
I’d rather say people finally become aware of facebook’s vacuity.
thats it, dude