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Inside Facebook reports on recent data from their gold reporting service that Facebook has lost 6 million users from their U.S. base.
Inside Facebook said Facebook in the "United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it. This is the first time the country has lost users in the past year."
US wasn't the only place losing users, "Canada also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million, although it has been fluctuating around that number for the past year. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, Norway and Russia all posted losses of more than 100,000."
They posted the top gaining countries:
Webmasters and SEOs are discussing what is going on here. Supposedly, the data Inside Facebook uses to get this data is from Facebook's advertising tool. The tool may have reporting bugs leading to issues with these marketshare reports - so it is hard to be 100% positive that Facebook lost 6 million users in the US market.
That being said, a WebmasterWorld thread has some people saying they are not surprised. They feel Facebook is becoming too commercial and at the same time people are leaving because it is overwhelming and too time consuming for users. Meaning, people want to focus more on work and less on social things.
I am not too sure.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Nick Stamoulis
06/14/2011 02:46 pm
I think it's more important to find out what type of person is leaving Facebook, more than how many of them left. Of the 6 million people, how many were Gen Y, Gen X or Baby Boomers? How long have they been on Facebook?
Michael Roberts
06/14/2011 03:14 pm
Considering the amount of people I know with 3, 4 or 5 accounts, so they can add themselves as friends for Farmville, Mafia Wars and similar games, I'm wondering how many of the 6 million drop are actually fake accounts that people have closed out or bots abandoned after living past their worth.
Chuck J.
06/14/2011 03:51 pm
This is interesting because I have noticed a drastic decline in the number of posts people have been making. I was thinking people were possibly getting burnt out with FaceBook and doing other things.
helpstring
06/14/2011 10:43 pm
Every hype has its end and there are lots of accounts just unused out there. Would be interesting to see statistics of those abandoned accounts. With twitter it'll be the same but there the number of unused accounts is even higher I guess.
Jim
06/15/2011 12:00 pm
I left FB a few months ago. My decision was privacy related. It seemed FB kept culling my e-mail lists. Also, I was on a completely different site and it suggested people on FB that I could meet. It's all kind of creepy. Another thing I"m worried about is that there are those little FB share or like buttons that I might press by accident and then all my FB friends will see what I've viewed. Sometimes I may be viewing web pages of a personal nature and wouldn't want to mistakenly share that info.
Sam-SEO
06/15/2011 02:51 pm
I closed down 10 FaceBook account I was using to market a client. I still have over 100 left for other clients. I wonder on average how man accounts most people have? You should do a poll.
Nancy Audet
06/16/2011 07:08 pm
my thoughts exactly. Have you seen anything that has insights into this question?
Jonecir Souza
06/17/2011 01:49 pm
I would say there's too much social networks out there (twitter, orkut, myspace, linkedln, foursqure - just to name a few) and people are just getting tired and without enough time to keep up posting on all these social networks. And of course, the "social" thing is becoming (or became) all about marketing.
Engineer255
06/18/2011 02:28 am
95% Facebook information is garbage. I constantly get ridiculous messages from Facebook wanting me to see postings that are crap by people I don't even know. A total waste of time.
Wallysmi123
06/29/2011 09:44 am
FaceBook archived my Group and now I cant access the archived info......
PalDA
07/11/2011 07:04 am
In the Arab world, part of the reason the number of facebook users have increased is due to its role in the recent revolutions, the other is wanting to keep in touch with friends. There is also lack of awareness of issues related to privacy. Personally, I truely believe that it's unsafe to use facebook. I know friends whose accounts were hacked and I've read articles about the website's privacy policy issue, yet I just can't get myself to close my account. I've lived in so many places, and I found facebook to be the best tool to keep in touch with the friends I made in these places and staying up to date with their latest news. What I am considering now though is pulling down my photo albums and any personal information, and just keeping my name. Not sure if that's enough, but it's a start!
Nina
07/30/2011 03:36 pm
They are also, in conjunction with the government censorship, messing with law abiding activits who use facebook to get their message across. People are sick of and fed up with the government underhanded tactics of censhorship. Causing you to put in Security codes when you post things, tracking you and your "Freedom of Free Speech." The Government even has operatives operating as fb members to disrupt, file fake complaints about fb users and have their accounts closed. The use of no customer service makes for it to be impossible to challenge anything. That is why I was opposed to not paying a fee. At least you'd have some kind of a voice. But it looks like even with "National Security Letters" that get sent out to all Internet Companies... the government even has their own floor in these organizations. Nothing is safe. Unless some kind of legislation, without the help of crooket politicians and lawyers, to have a private internet connection, where there are safe guidelines to follow and practice and keep the government out of it so that there can be a participation of free speech even if it means saying not so nice things about the government and exposing their criminal activity.
Karl Malloy
08/07/2011 02:45 pm
Nina, always remember: just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you.
Karl Malloy
08/07/2011 02:45 pm
Please correct the error in the title, it should say "Facebook Using Losers"
MonkeyShines4T
09/01/2011 05:23 pm
I successfully avoided FB & TWTR accounts for years. Unfortunately I have 2 businesses who's customers are on FB. It used to be MySpace several years ago. Facebook truly has gotten hyper-commercialized. Did that happen after the sale of it? Wasn't the creator adamant to keep it from being commercialized? Does anyone know?
Joancsb
11/01/2011 08:38 pm
Facebook is a waste of time. Who cares what time someone got up or that their baby peed in their bed? Really I must know some dumb people!!
James
11/29/2011 05:36 am
I was on Rhapsody the other day and was trying to find a song I heard on South Park. I found it and listened to it and all its remixed versions. Two days later I logged into Facebook and the track titles I listened to were on my wall. "James listened to **** The Pain Away". Yes, I have family that can see my 'wall'.
James
11/29/2011 05:39 am
I have 35 friends. I mean, actual people that I actually know in real life that is... My news feed is either filled with complaints from the same 4 friends, tons of marketing derived from the 'likes' and profile information of movies, artists, and whatever else you can fill out in your profile info. The other 31 friends I have, well, I wouldn't know what they're up to unless I called them because they don't update their status. So apparently, Facebook is great for posting public complaints, and for trolling my info to market me crap I would never buy anyway.
Cybercake
02/08/2012 04:12 pm
http://www.facebook.com/groups/OpFacePlant/
ArchDeacon Malli
03/04/2012 02:50 am
Facebook is a sleazy company run by a smirking little dirtbag. They have a clear pattern of dishonesty and nefarious behavior. That's why they are losing users, and will likely go the way of myspace.
Richard
05/10/2012 10:06 pm
The new facebook sucks badly.
J x
05/30/2012 11:17 am
How to delete your account:http://romcartridge.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-delete-facebook-account.html Happy to be facebook free.