Interesting stories in the papers earlier this week stating that 100,000 Britons are leaving Facebook every day. Is this something that will concern the social networking site with 600 million users worldwide? Possibly not, but it would be interesting to see what the drop off figures were, say six months ago before the press really started focusing on the issues of privacy (something they haven’t, to my mind really exploited yet).

What I did take notice of however was a teenage girl saying that she didn’t deem Facebook as relevant or ‘cool’ anymore because her Dad was an avid user. Her and her friends had deleted their accounts and were looking for more teen friendly forums (ie: no parents allowed) to spend their time. The teen focused client page that my agency runs, I can safely say, contradicts this in its entirety however it does raise an interesting point. Early adopters of Facebook, those that championed every move the social network made, are now grown up. They are comfortable with a site that has serviced them well, that has mapped their journey from ‘studentsville’ into adulthood. But now, importantly there is the next generation, those that are more digital savvy, who know what they want (not something that is endorsed by their parents). Their needs, I would suggest, are undoubtedly different. Hence why Facebook will (and has to) continue to innovate.

This was demonstrated perfectly with the recently launched, facial recognition auto-tagging of photos. A tool that was met with horror in some camps (I’ve never seen so many articles on how to ‘deactivate’ this) and yet, I can see its massive appeal to a generation that has grown up with over sharing. How far can Facebook push the barriers of catering to one audience without running the risk of alienating their core advocates and of course vice – versa as highlighted above? Despite the lack of critical mass behind emerging niche networks, user loyalty is sure to become increasingly fickle. The figures reported last week could, quite possibly, be an indication of this.