Has Facebook reached it’s peak? This may seem like an impossible concept for people who have used it for years and see it as a daily utilized part of our personal and business lives.
In the last five years, Facebook has been the mega success story of the Internet. From starting as a private college networking website in 2004 to putting MySpace out of business and becoming the number one social networking website in the world by 2008, they have garnered the attention of people from all over the world.
Facebook is a social media mammoth. It’s become a digital scrapbook of life where people share pictures, locations, and what they are doing at every second of the day. Facebook has developed its own jargon among users making it to where instead of exchanging e-mail addresses when meeting, people say “Facebook me”.
In recent months, Facebook has reported to have over 1 billion users worldwide. So it is difficult to believe that a business with as successful of a platform that reaches as far as Facebook does could be at any risk of losing relevancy. However, a report from the Huffington Post said that since December of 2012, approximately 1.4 million Americans and 600 thousand Brits have left the site, cause Facebook to take a major hit in its two most developed markets. Users are also dropping in Spain, Italy, Germany, Canada, and Japan.
Many younger users report they are leaving because of the increasing presence of the older generation on Facebook. Users also cite political disagreements, advertising gimmicks, and constantly changing privacy settings as their reasons for leaving. Is this simply a coincidence or is Facebook truly on its way out? While the true answer may not be directly apparent, it is definitely something interesting to think about.