22 February 2008
Facebook has experienced its first drop in monthly users, according to numbers from web analytics outfit Nielsen Online.
Five percent fewer people in the UK visited Facebook in January compared to the previous month. Although five percent seems small, it accounts for a total of 400,000 visitors seemingly becoming bored with the social network and not bothering to return. This time last year Facebook was still growing rapidly, despite the usual seasonal dip experienced online.
The slide is very bad news for Facebook. Rapid user growth is all it has to show for its massive investment in servers, and now it looks like even that story is evaporating. The only company bringing in significant revenue from Facebook is Rackable Systems, its hardware provider.
On the positive side, similar drops in interest have hit Facebook's competitors. Bebo has seen an eight percent drop in UK users since October. MySpace, meanwhile, has seen 14 percent of UK users desert it in the last three months.
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