• Creative Capital, Thursday, January 31, 2008 11:30 AM

After peaking in October 2007 with 71.9 million users, MySpace's unique audience trailed off to 68.9 million in November and stayed that way in December. However, member engagement dropped off an alarming 8.5 percent from November to December, the biggest month-to-month drop of 2007 for MySpace. For the full year, engagement fell 24 percent.

The problem isn't specific to MySpace, either, as comScore shows that time spent on Bebo has been cut in half in the past four months, while Friendster has plummeted 75 percent over the same period. Even Facebook, despite doubling its year over year audience in the U.S., saw a paltry 13 percent growth in time spent per user.

Advertisers certainly won't be too impressed by the engagement figures, which social networks have trumpeted as one of their core competencies. Is this a sign that the Web's fickle users are getting bored with social networks? The slowdown in time spent per user certainly places more pressure on advertising programs to perform, but it also pressures social networks to innovate in order to retain users.

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