Decline of Social Networking?

So a number of papers reported this morning on the apparent 'death of social networking' as Facebook's users declined (drop in uniques) for the first time between December and January.

Here is a round up of some of headlines so far:

The Guardian - 'Facebook Fatigue'

Forbes - 'Facebook Falters'

The Times - 'Is Facebook Finally Losing Its Glow?'

The Register - 'Facebook Loses a Few Bitches'

But here's the reality, (well done Techcrunch for highlighting this within minutes). Facebook's users are still 712% higher than this time last year and we always see a dip in users during this period because of the Christmas holidays and people being on holiday and away from work and their computers.

Website traffic fluctuates in the same way the stock market does. Just because numbers are down one month does not mean impending doom.

Give it time. Social networking may be beginning to slow as the initial craze begins to fade, but it will be interesting to see how people continue to integrate it into their daily routines.

Throwing sheep, vampire-bites and superpokes will become tiresome but there are a host of useful apps out there making Facebook so appealing to so many.