Facebook traffic declines ???

Maybe it’s the zombies or the poking, but there has been a decline in the market share of visits for Facebook. The website has experienced considerable growth over the past 24 months and the market share of visits has recently reached the highest points to date over the Christmas holidays (the week ending Dec. 29, 2007). However, for the week ending Feb 23, 2008, the market share of visits was down 27% from the peak.

To some extent, this may be a seasonal trend related to the school year, since traffic increased during both Thanksgiving & Winter breaks to the levels similar to summer months. While the user base has shifted somewhat toward older demographics, there is still a significant share of traffic between the ages of 18 to 24 (40-41% for each week in 2008) that would make the traffic patterns somewhat susceptible to college schedules.

Users are continuing to increase the amount of time being spent on Facebook. The average visit time has increased steadily over the past 24 months, reaching 21 minutes and 22 seconds for the week ending Feb 23, 2008. This is increase of 73% from the same week last year. One interesting point to note is that during recent peaks in traffic, the average visit time decreases, evidence that these spikes are being driven by less active users of Facebook.

Some of the downturn may be attributed to fatigue based upon excessive activity (e.g. application invites) and privacy concerns, although that is clearly not the case across the entire user base. In fact, many use Facebook as the platform to voice their concerns over these types of issues. Beyond school year patterns, the current decline could just be driven by those who signed up out of curiosity or insistence from friends who are accessing the website with less frequency.