Facebook's user decline *really* doesn't matter

Apparently Nielssen is reporting a small drop in the number of people in the UK using Facebook. 8.9m users in December dropped to 8.5m users in January. Guys, this almost couldn't matter less. The stat we're looking at here is the number of people who visited the site once in January compared to the number who did so in December. That's not a remotely sensible way of measuring Facebook's popularity. How many total minutes did UK Internet users spend on the site in January? (answer: many more than in December.) How many minutes were spent on the site per person in January? (again: more than in December.) How many times did each visitor go to the site in January? (and so on, ad infinitum.)

So some of Facebook's casual, drive-by traffic has dried up (presumably because absolutely everyone with a computer has now looked at it at least once and either said "nah" or "go on then"). No big deal there. Actual engagement is up across the board.

Put it this way: if you're not smart enough to have stopped applying irrelevant mass media consumption figures to this stuff about two years ago, at least be smart enough to apply the right irrelevant mass media consumption figures. On those terms, Facebook's engagement numbers grew in January. The site isn't in decline.

Don't get me wrong: Facebook is still evil and doomed. Just...not in that way.

Comments

[R N B]

I fully agree that facebook as a business model is doomed by data protection concerns, and have written many of the same conclusions.

But all the stats you quoted here imply a small decline in January - where is the evidence that engagement has actually gone up?

[Tom Findlay]

Yeah, it might be evil and doomed, and really, who gives a tinker's curse what the usage is? But it has played a significant role in the global trends towards deregulation, non-hierarchical inclusivity, and the drive towards open and transparent communities.

It's also a bit of a gas that one wee guy can write a bit of software and create a vast global community. Of course craigslist with about 3 billion hits a month did that eons ago...

[Seamus McCauley]

RNB: I have access to comScore stats but not a license to republish them; those stats show That engagement in all the metrics I cite above (minutes spent on the site etc) up in Jan.

Tom - very true. See indeed Seth Godin's "Small is the new big" on this subject. The thing that will ultimately hammer Facebook is competition from some tiny shoestring operation that doesn't need to pester its users with invasive ads every day merely to justify a spurious multi-billion dollar paper valuation. Right now my money's on Kaioo.

Thanks for commenting guys.