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Facebook fatigue may be setting in
A woman types in her password to enter Facebook using an app on her iPhone.
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Kai Ryssdal: A funny thing happened to my Facebook account about a month or so ago. It was hacked. Truth is, it's just been way to hard to get the company to help me fix it, so I've just given up, and I've been living Facebook-free ever since. Beautiful part is I don't really miss it, and it turns out I may not be the only person suffering Facebook fatigue.
A report out today says the number of users in the U.S. may actually be falling. Marketplace's Steve Henn reports.
Steve Henn: Facebook is still expanding globally, but in places where it's has been around for a long time -- like the U.S. and the U.K. -- traffic may be falling off. Analysts at Inside Facebook, which tracks the social network obsessively, say that last month that six million fewer Americans logged into Facebook than the month before.
Michael Gartenberg: You know, it could be a blip, but you are still talking about a company that is closing in on 700 million users.
Michael Gartenberg is a social media analyst at Gartner. He says it's too soon to call this a trend, but with Facebook planning a $100 billion IPO, this is not the best time for the company to start losing its audience.
And some analysts think Facebook fatigue may be setting in.
Jay Cuthrell: Absolutely.
Jay Cuthrell is a tech consultant -- and was an early Facebook adopter.
Cuthrell: I think I had 1,000 or more friends or more and I just couldn't keep track of it.
Ask your own friends about the annoying Facebook posts they've received and be prepared for a barrage. Religious quotes, political tirade, bragging, even your baby's first steps are likely to annoy someone. Then there are the games.
Cuthrell: Pokes, and vampire bites or zombie bites or mob hits. But from my point of view, it's noise.
Michael Gartnerberg at Gartner says if Facebook is going to keep growing it will have to build better tools that let everyone turn down the noise and find the messages that matter to them.
In Silicon Valley, I'm Steve Henn for Marketplace.
Twitter is great short, and you can read what key people read but further for friend get out side met real people.
climb on a bike, get running shoes on, go making arts, cooking whatever do something real.
the world will be a better place.
today we need more than facebook to fix the mess we are in.
the only thing you are contributing too is making riches richer.
I went on a voluntary f/b hiatus about 9 months ago. It was absolutely liberating! Of course, distant family and friends complained, and eventually I came back to keep up with those "real friends". As an aside, Facebook might be able to keep more of its users if it would stop "fixing" things that ain't broke. Truly annoying.
Hi Kai-
Regardless of the ubiquitious 'you can follow us on twitter and facebook' announcements/icons on practically every web site, I neither subscribe,belong nor patronize either of them. It is sad that so many promising technologies, among other things, can be and are used irresponsibly. Because of that, I generally tend to refuse to participate.
My Facebook account was also hacked in March. No one at Facebook was in a rush to help me re-establish my identity, so I was not in a rush to get back on. I just started yesterday. I miss the online contact with my friends and family and I am sorry Facebook did not help me. Fortunately for me though, I still know how to use the telephone.
The only thing that keeps me from deleting my Facebook profile is the online Scrabble game...
Before Facebook, I was on Friendster. They both started in similar exclusive ways. With Friendster, you had to get an invite from a friend. Then you joined and you could only see your friend's friends. You added them to your list and then you could see their friends. Eventually, you would be connected to Keven Bacon. Then they needed to "grow" so they opened up, anybody could join. Then it just turned into spam and advertising.
Same thing with Facebook. When it started, it was only for schools. You had to have a ".edu" email address to join. Then they needed to "grow" so they opened it up, general admission. The kids were dismayed when their parents and grandparents joined up. And now, it's just spam and advertising...
Hi Kai, Welcome back! I, too, had my Facebook account hacked a few months ago. Since I refused to jump through the thousand-and-one hoops Facebook wants me to jump through to get back in its good graces, I've been Facebook-free for several months now and have lived to tell the tale. In fact, I barely miss it.
