"社交網疲勞"席捲英美 Facebook遇冷

Tired of social networking? Logging off Facebook? You’re probably not the only one.

厭倦了社交網站？註銷了Facebook賬戶？這麼做的人可不只你一個。

Fearing for their privacy or perhaps just bored with using the site, 100,000 Britons are said to have deactivatedtheir accounts last month.

據稱，因擔心隱私外泄或者只是厭倦了使用社交網站，英國上月有十萬人註銷了Facebook賬戶。

And Facebook fatigue seems to be catching. Six million logged off for goodin the US too, figures show.

“Facebook疲勞”似乎也能傳染。數據顯示，美國也有六百萬人永久註銷了賬戶。

Worldwide, the rate of growth has slowed for a second month in a row – and as it aims to reach its goal of one billion active users, Facebook is having to rely on developing countries to boost its numbers.

從全球來看，Facebook用戶量的增速已連續第二個月出現下滑。Facebook的目標是活躍用戶達到10億，但現在不得不依靠發展中國家來增加用戶量了。

The figures suggest that there could be a ‘natural limit’ for Facebook’s saturation.

數據顯示，Facebook用戶量的飽和度有“天然上限”。

There is even speculation on blogs that, as is feared for its failing rival MySpace, the website could one day ‘sputterinto oblivion’.

還有人發表博文，擔心Facebook將來會像其衰敗的競爭對手MySpace一樣“星光璀璨，而又迅速隕滅”。

Earlier this year, executives announced that the number of Facebook accounts held in the UK had reached 30million, accounting for about half the population.

今年早些時候，Facebook高管宣佈英國用戶量達到三千萬，佔全英總人口的一半。

The milestone was an increase of four million from last July and represented the highest saturation of any country in Europe.

與去年七月相比，英國Facebook用戶量增加了四百萬，堪稱里程碑。英國的Facebook用戶飽和度目前在歐洲居首。

But times change – and last month more than 100,000 in the UK stopped using the website, figures show. In the U.S, user numbers dropped from 155.2million to 149.4 million throughout May. In Canada there was also a fall, of about 1.5million users, while in Russia and Norway numbers also fell by more than 100,000 users.

但如今局勢生變，僅在上月英國就有超過10萬人註銷了賬戶。在美國，Facebook用戶量在五月從1.552億人下降到1.494億人。加拿大用戶量也減少了大約150萬人。在俄羅斯和挪威，用戶量也減少了超過10萬人。

It’s not all bad news for the site. Worldwide, Facebook is still expanding and has around 600million users, thanks to strong growth in countries such as Mexico and Brazil.

但對Facebook來說也有好消息。從全球來看，Facebook的用戶量仍在上升，約爲6億人，這有賴於墨西哥、巴西等國用戶量的大量增長。

According to Eric Eldon, of the website Inside Facebook, which obtained the figures through analysis of the company’s advertising tools, there is a point at which the site can no longer grow, once it has established itself in a country.

美國科技博客網站Inside Facebook的埃裏克 埃爾登介紹稱，Facebook在某一國家面世後，用戶量的增長存在上限。該網站通過公司的廣告工具分析得出了上述數據。

‘By the time Facebook reaches around 50 per cent of the total population in a given country, growth generally slows to a halt,’ he explained.

他解釋說：“Facebook在某個國家的用戶量達到人口總量的大約一半後，就逐漸停止增長了。”