Are social networking sites sooo 2007?

Hardly balanced but a determined poke at the sustainability question around social networkingi sites.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/31/myspace_fb_comscore_drop/

A less 'attack dog' approach, with some of the stats is here, further comment here.

Browsing the various comments the views seem to fall in to:
a) it's all over for social networks, everyone's bored now
b) no it's not but the figures represent:
- dilution of early adopters who spent a lot of time on the sites with occasional users
- shift to an older demographic who use the sites less intensively and also make the sites less attractive to younger users.
- greater choice of sites, users shifting from one to another.

Those in the b) camp maintain that double digit growth figures in users was never sustainable and that usage will soon reach a steady level.  Of course that does then raise the question of how such sites will will keep investors minds off the negative bottom line if they can't shout about dramatic rises in sign ups.

An interesting comment at the end of the Register piece comparing the respective market valuations of Facebook and the Ford Motor Company.