Has the tide turned for Facebook ?

BBC NEWS | Business | Facebook ‘sees decline in users’

Facebook has seen its first drop in UK users in January, new industry data indicates.

Users fell 5% to 8.5 million in January from 8.9 million in December, according to data from Nielsen Online.

This was the first drop in user numbers since July 2006 when Nielsen began compiling data on the site.

Now, I’m not a prolific user of Facebook but I can see just how bored people are getting with it.

Not every one is into micro-blogging and there’s a limit to anyone’s patience with the number of the number of requests and notifications anyone can wade through.

True there are some good changes to the Facebook interface of late but the basic problem is not everyone has the same likes and dislikes and I’m not that sure I want to know my stripper name, be hugged or buy a friend.

Where Facebook wins is the dramatic take up it enjoyed, the fact that it’s free and you can link up with people you lost contact with.

Sounds a little like FriendsReunited doesn’t it ? I wonder just what the future for FriendsReunited is other than a marketing database for ITV. It’s look and feel is years out of date, the interface is truely appauling and not extensible like Facebook is. The management of the site is dodgy - I regularily get emails telling me that new people have signed up to FriendsReunited but when I check there are none. You have to pay and if you do pay there’s no way of telling if people are still active on the site.

How sad that both sites seem to have wasted a chance. Facebook by being too snappy and Web 2.0 and FriendsReunited by running on a old business model and looking rather an untrendy uncle at a family wedding.