Are we burning out on Facebook?

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9179047/Are_we_burning_out_on_Facebook_

by novum • 16 years ago

17 24 16 years ago

novum• 16 years ago

The social networking site only picked up 320,800 new users in the U.S. in June, according to Inside Facebook. That might sound like a lot -- until you compare it with the number of new U.S. users the site grabbed in May: 7.8 million.

Wow. What could have caused a decline like this? The end of the school year? The ongoing privacy brouhaha? Twitter?

all• 16 years ago

Almost certainly its the school break, family holidays, and the like. FWIW, I can only name one of the many FB users I know who thinks that the new privacy implementation isn't sufficient. Most people are pretty apathetic about privacy. I recall a study a couple years back that was held here in the UK and found that most people would have to have their identities stolen twice before they would start to re-think how they handle their data.

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Most likely the end of the school year.

As much as I'd like to imagine that Facebook is dying (it has truly horrific usability), I don't think it's going away any time soon.

what• 16 years ago

Shouldn't there be more sign ups towards the end of the school year? So that people can keep in touch with their school friends over the summer.

Maybe everyone already has a FB account.

whatwhatwhat• 16 years ago

Usability on facebook is "truly horrific" ...? lol..

paul9290• 16 years ago

If it's school year. Anyone has sign up rates for June 2007, 08, 09?

tokenadult• 16 years ago

What could have caused a decline like this?

What could have caused a recent decline in the month-on-month new user numbers? Well, one possibility is a logistic growth curve

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function

based on Facebook having largely already saturated its easiest growth markets. No pattern of growth can remain exponential forever in a finite world.

nod• 16 years ago

Doesn't this happen every summer?

pedalpete• 16 years ago

Aren't we at the point where we stop counting Facebook registrations as a metric?

Particularly in a discussion on if we are burnt out! You're only going to sign-up once, so burn-out isn't measured by registrations.

Here are there visitor metrics http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com+google.com+bin...

Doesn't look like they are having any problems. Note google & bing are flat, facebook continues to rise.

joe_the_user• 16 years ago

No, we aren't at the point where we can stop counting Facebook registrations.

That point is when Facebook has convincingly shown the ability to hold and monetize its users. Since it hasn't reached that point, registrations is the main thing that makes it hot. If it were to start shrinking before it was monetizing, it would be in serious trouble.

Google doesn't need to grow faster than the Internet. Facebook does.

calebgilbert• 16 years ago

Guess I was ahead of the curve. Was burnt out on facebook the first time I tried it. :)

holman• 16 years ago

The story is interesting, but then my inner Gruber was channeled when I read this:

"Yes, people could be getting burned out," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group.

and remembered that Enderle is a jackass. I don't necessarily remember why Enderle is a jackass, but Gruber says so, so whatever he's in agreement with should be treated with extreme skepticism.

I think I read too much Gruber.

ju2tin2• 16 years ago

Any financial analyst knows you need to look at year-on-year ("YoY") growth rates for monthly data to eliminate the impact of seasonality. For example, retail sales for a store might fall off sharply in January compared to the preceding December, simply because lots of people were shopping in December for Christmas presents.

So instead of comparing June 2010 to May 2010, you compare May 2010 vs. May 2009 to June 2010 vs. June 2009. So you could say something like, "Facebook registrations were up 30% YoY in May 2010, but were up only 2% YoY in June 2010. Actually, at this point, YoY growth rates might even be negative (i.e., Facebook may have signed up more users in June 2009 than it did in June 2010).

Month-on-month (MoM) comparisons can be interesting, but you need to put them in context to determine if seasonality is affecting the results.

At any rate, the number of new registrations, by definition, says absolutely nothing about whether users are getting burned out on Facebook. You'd need a metric like average time spent on the site per user per month to say something about that.

code_duck4• 16 years ago

I can't wait. Burn, baby, burn!

code_duck4• 16 years ago

Ha ha. This has to be the biggest community of uptight nerds on the entire Internet.

code_duck4• 16 years ago

No, I'm serious. I have 190 points. Please go ahead and downvote all of my posts until it reaches zero.

ju2tin2• 16 years ago

Meanwhile, it sure seems like Computerworld has it in for Facebook. Here's the latest articles listed in its "Facebook Watch" sidebar: