On July 30, I made a note (read: prophecy) that Facebook will ultimately suffer because of the inundation of meaningless, impractical applications swamping users with tricky invitations.
The numbers are now in, and it seems that this is now becoming a reality. The media is noticing to ZDNet Australia this week highlighted the privacy issues (Facebook on the decline as ‘virus’ apps take hold) and iTWire are asking “Facebook on the down and out thanks to applications?”
Maybe my original title “Facebook Will Fail” might have been a bit strong, but statistics are clear:
The decline at Facebook is substantial: he cites figures showing that between January and April 2008, the number of posts fell by 51 percent, signups by 29 percent, and highly active users - surely the lifeblood of any social network - by 47 percent.
“The proportion of totally banal applications seems to be on the increase and there are fewer and fewer applications that my network, as an example, is finding to be sticky,” he says.
iTWire
Facebook needs to remain user centric, and by allowing every developer and his barkless dog to create impractical, uninteresting and unengaging applications for mass assault (any in some cases viral assault) then we’re really going to start seeing some declines.
MySpace took a hit. Facebook can (and probably will) too.
