Social Networking on the Downslope?

It sure seems that way from reading this article.

The average length of time users spend on all of the top three sites is on the slide. Bebo, MySpace and Facebook all took double-digit percentage hits in the last months of 2007. December could perhaps be forgiven as a seasonal blip when people see their real friends and family, but the trend was already south.The story year-on-year is even uglier for social networking advocates. Bebo and MySpace were both well down on the same period in 2006 - Murdoch's site by 24 per cent. Facebook meanwhile chalked up a rise, although way off its mid-2007 hype peak when you couldn't move for zeitgeist-chasing "where's the
Facebook angle?" stories in the press and on TV.

So does this mean that these social networks are starting to falter and the $15 billion price tag for Facebook seems overvalued? It sure seems that way from reading these numbers. I think Mark Zuckerberg should have went public in 2007 and reaped the big money buyout when it was right there in front of him.

I think you may need to chalk this all up to the fact that people might have thousands of semi-friends/strangers in their Friends List on MySpace but maybe only a handfull of real friends. They can easily keep in touch of those real friends without having to resort to MySpace to round them all up. There is just not enough things to do on MySpace or Facebook to keep people interested once they have their profile how they want it.

You also couple this with the fact that everyone from presidential candidates to C-list celebs have a Facebook and MySpace profile. These profiles were once something that a teen could feel special about since only they knew about it, could create it, or have even heard about it. It was "their thing." Now that MySpace is hosting debates, selling adspace, and generally getting into the mainstream it isn't new or special anymore. And judging by Facebook's really scary fundamentals they may even have more in common with Peapod and Pets.com then in Google or Ebay.