Everyone Who Wants It Already Has It?

Whew, I finally finished reading chapter 7 of The Wealth of Networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom by Yochai Benkler. It was a bit of a slog at times, but definitely worthwhile. I will comment on it here later after a bit more reflection.


In the meantime, I came across an interesting post from Wired-dot-com citing an impressive fall-off in new-user registrations for Facebook—7.8 million+ in May, followed by only 320,000 or so in June. By my hasty calculation that is a drop of 95% plus change!

Ryan Singel, the post’s author, notes that Facebook took a bit of a public flogging during this period over their sleight-of-hand regarding privacy settings, and that certainly could be giving potential new users pause. But the more intriguing conjecture, as Singel puts it, is “…there’s also the possibility that almost every American who has any interest in joining Facebook already has.”

That would represent one very fast ride to (U.S.) market saturation!



http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/facebook-fatigue/