The Decline of Facebook: Is it the Recession or Are Users Fed Up?

Rumors are beginning to surface that Facebook has exhausted it's appeal as a social networking application. Facebook suffered the first fall among UK users which showed a 5% decline from December to January. Myspace also showed a parallel decline for that period. Many analysts said that one month of decline does not spell trouble for Facebook. If we look at the daily US stats for the site on Quantcast from 9/30 to 3/31, it documents zero usage growth (see trend indicator in picture) for Facebook. Maybe it's just that US and European growth has flattened, and the rest of the world is where such services are seeing attracting new users. Could it be that the novelty has worn off, and we are all tired of the pokes and videos that get sent our way? Or has Facebook just gotten too complex to use? Like all consumer applications, Social networking sites die for only one reason: When users leave for something better.