This is anecdotal, but I have the impression that Facebook is rapidly going the way of MySpace. As you know, I am also a regular blogger at the Black Gate, which began receiving a substantial amount of traffic from Facebook about two years ago.
However, looking at the pattern of the traffic received over the course of the year, I began to notice that the amount of traffic received from Facebook was declining. Consider the following numbers as percentages of the Facebook-derived January traffic.
Jan 11 100.0
Apr 11 69.3
Jul 11 45.7
Oct 11 63.5
Dec 11 26.5 (est.)
Now, one might reasonably suspect that this is due to a seasonal pattern, except for the fact that the December 2010 traffic was 112.0… with 35 percent less overall traffic than is presently indicated for December 2011. Since Black Gate’s traffic has been growing steadily throughout the year, this means Facebook-derived traffic as a percentage of all traffic has fallen even more drastically than it appears in the direct 112:26.5 year-on-year comparison.
I was never a Facebook enthusiast, but I really don’t use it anymore. It would seem to appear that I am not the only one.