‘Facebook fatigue’ kicks in as people tire of social networks
Shhh! Can you hear a hiss? That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad. — Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes …
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook closed January on two contradictory notes. It claimed 68 million active users in the past 30 days, and days earlier it had begun pushing its platform outward — releasing a JavaScript client library so applications run on developers' own sites instead of strictly inside facebook.com. Now comScore's analytics data has confirmed what the chatter suggested: engagement across social networks is cooling, with users tiring of the networks themselves.
The tension matters because Facebook was betting on openness just as the audience curve flattened. On the talent side, unconfirmed reports have Google and Facebook battling over this year's computer science graduates with Stanford as ground zero — though the salary inflation that contest produces is well documented.
First-order effects
- Developers who built applications inside facebook.com face a decelerating audience there, which is precisely why Facebook's January client-library move lets those apps live on external sites where growth doesn't depend on Facebook's pageviews.
Second-order effects
- With raw signup growth stalling, competition between Facebook and rivals shifts from user counts to engagement depth — and to the engineers who build it, where the Google–Facebook graduate hiring fight is already pushing starting salaries sharply higher.
Third-order effects
- If the fatigue pattern holds, social platforms will compete on re-engagement mechanics and off-site distribution rather than novelty of membership, structurally rewarding whoever owns the developer relationship outside the walled garden.
The trend: Social networking is moving from a walled-garden pageview race toward off-site application distribution and engineered re-engagement, as comScore's engagement data shows the easy growth phase ending.