It’s not surprising there’s been a lot of response to the Nielsen Online findings that both Facebook and Myspace have dropped around 5% in UK audience figures for January 2008, month-on-month. Bebo also dropped 2% for UK users MoM for January.

It’s worth noting that the findings come from monitoring UK usage at home and at work, meaning schools, universities and internet cafes are not included. (Would the drop be contributed to by the fact school pupils and students were home more during December)

Interestingly it also coincides with a presentation I attended which claimed a significant portion of people will stick with whatever social network site they first got involved in – and those that do migrate tend to still visit their former social network home, but in less and less frequency.

And the final interesting facet to this is the continued growth of Twitter.

This all fits somewhat with my own habits recently, as I’ve reached a critical mass on Twitter, and I find myself constantly wanting to check the conversations and links being added. Meanwhile there is slightly less relevant and interesting content surfacing on Facebook in relation to annoying application invites for novelty items.

A number of reasons for this spring to mind. Twitter is used incredibly easily on mobile, and strips out anything extraneous to ‘the conversation’. The publicity of a supposed paedophile threat and more realistic concerns over employers checking profiles could have affected sign-ups/usage. Possibly some people have simply decided the profile led social networks aren’t for them, or didn’t see how it can be useful. Or perhaps a time of possible recession has meant people are more conscious of how they spend their time at work – if social networking hasn’t been blocked or banned.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens over the next few months, but some things I do know:

• Facebook dropped 5% MoM, but was up 712% YoY (UK)
• Myspace fell 9% YoY (UK). Bebo was up 53% YoY
• None of those figures mean you can ignore those sites.
• Those who interact the most, who give and receive the biggest value in terms of interaction, will continue.
• The niche networks are where growth is predicted.
• Even with a 5% drop, the market leaders still have a huge potential crowd, as long as they are interacted with in the right way.
• Twitter will continue to grow for a while yet, as it’ll start moving past the techy early adopters. Particularly around quick and easy mobile updates, which can then appear on Facebook/Myspace/Blogs etc.
• If the social networks develop again, users will be drawn back. It’s all about developments and friends as reasons to visit.