Offset Printing Services - Facebook Lost 1.4 Million Users. Does That Matter?

Source - http://mashable.com
By - Chris Taylor
Category - Offset Printing Services
Posted By - http://tinyurl.com/GoogleAd1 

Offset Printing Services

You've probably heard that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." It's fair to say the English poet who first wrote that wasn't thinking about social network usage data. 

Still, in an age when we're bombarded with statistics, the phrase has become more appropriate than ever. And it's why you should take recent reports that Facebook lost more than a million active users with a pinch of salt. 

Case in point: when Instagram's Daily Active Users seemed to drop by a quarter at the end of December, according to AppData, some commentators took it as a sign that the Terms of Service kerfuffle had driven 25% of the photo app's users away.

But as Instagram announced Thursday, its Monthly Active User count has actually grown 10% since December, to 90 million users. Monthly active user numbers are more reliable, and less prone to day-to-day fluctuations. (AppData had also shown a rise in monthly users before Instagram stopped reporting its information to the service.)

Now comes news that Facebook lost 1.4 million monthly active users in the U.S. in early December, as reported by the analytics firm SocialBakers. That's a more reliable indication that the service is slipping, right? 

Wrong. First of all, SocialBakers is tapping into information Facebook gives its advertisers to test the reach of their ads; it isn't intended for precision user metrics.

But even assuming the number is right on the money, consider that 1.4 million users is less than 1% of Facebook's U.S. total active user base — which is 167 million. 

Facebook's growth has never gone in a straight line. No growth ever does. As you can see in the video above, it has slipped back several times in the past — and always bounced back.

Then again, Facebook is certainly approaching the definition of a mature market in the U.S., with more than half of everyone in the country using the service. Considering those under 13 can't join it, and many of those over 65 don't care to, it doesn't have that much room left to grow at home (though it is still growing like a weed internationally.)

What do you think? Will Facebook user numbers continue to rise in the U.S., or is this the beginning of a stagnation period? Let us know in the comments.