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Social networks are cashed.
The Hollywood Reporter published numbers today showing the gravity-defying growth numbers of social networks are over. Both MySpace and Facebook aren’t seeing the same numbers they saw last year, with MySpace hit especially hard. The NewsCorp-owned site had 2.4 percent less visitors in January than it did in December (though the site is still up overall by 8 percent since January 2007). Facebook gained only 6.2 percent since November. That’s problematic because people are used to double digit growth from month to month.
Reasons as to why the numbers aren’t as impressive—everyone who would have signed up for the sites already has (hence low growth), people have newfound privacy concerns, or people are just tired of drawing obscene things on each other’s wall. I know kids here at school are all about Facebook, but you sorta get the feeling that people don’t spend all night on the site anymore. That’s just based on my personal experience and isn’t based on any sort of science at all.
Growth cools at social networks [Hollywood Reporter]