Facebook UK loses 600,000 users in December -- top of the hill?

[littleman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/14/facebook-loses-uk-users-december

Numbers dropped by 1.86% over festive period, fuelling speculation that site is reaching saturation point in core markets

They have 53%/UK & 54%/US market saturation, I can't see that number going up much higher.  I'd like t o see trend data on average user login/page view time.  I have a feeling that it is going down even if user numbers have gone up.

[Chunkford]

TBH I've started not going on as much as I used to.
Even the misses looks like she's toned it down, albeit she's now addicted to Pintrest, and if she's toning it down then the whole world must be lol

Wonder what the big announcement is tomorrow? Any one care to guess? Search engine?

[IrishWonder]

The numbers vary by country
Here is a tweet I have seen today with some Spanish data https://twitter.com/conoroconnor/status/290908139140837376

(Added) however it all depends on how to count,  "have account" does not necessarily mean actively use it

[rcjordan]

While previously hardcore members' use may be topping out or even declining, I expect that overall usage has increased enough to offset that --though I haven't seen any confirmation of that anywhere.

There's some FB soul-searching on reddit now, probably driven by that UK article. Pretty much sums it up.  

top answer:

I used to think it would go into the "MySpace Cycle" where every post you saw was "Like this if you hate racism/cancer/mail fraud!" or a game request. At that point a lot if users would move on, and then eventually everyone would migrate to the new site. While there are a lot of those posts, I think Facebook has become too deeply integrated into our society to truly die out anytime soon.
For instance, after family events my aunts/uncles/cousins now share all the photos through Facebook. Because it's easy, and every one of them has a Facebook. Until a viable competitor with a compelling improvement over Facebook arrives, I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

2nd:

I think, like many people have said, Google+ is (theoretically) a great competitor to Facebook. The problem is there's no incentive to switch over. The majority of people aren't Google/Facebook fanboys, so the method (website) in which they interact with their friends doesn't really matter. And since everyone is on Facebook, why would they change to Google+?
I think Facebook is too huge of a company to mess with right now, and Google+ didn't come at the right time. I don't see Facebook going anyway anytime soon, especially considering how they are constantly "improving" to stay current. MySpace got stagnant which made it an easy target to attack.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/16jqgk/is_facebook_dying/

[edo]

Totally agree with the two comments. Facebook is like Coca-Cola. It isn't going anywhere.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2262906/Facebook-takes-search-New-service-lets-user-search-photos-people-connections--web.html

[edo]

If you want to be put on the waiting list...

http://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch

You have to set your account settings to English (US) if you're not in the States.

[rcjordan]

Maybe people got tired of their friends and family over the holidays, or perhaps they resolved to do a digital detox for the New Year. Either way, Facebook has been a bit quieter lately.

Facebook loses 1.4 million active users in U.S.
The social network may be reaching a saturation point

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-loses-14-million-active-users-in-us-2013-01-15

"saturation point" would seem reasonable to me.