"社交网疲劳"席卷英美 Facebook遇冷

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

厌倦了社交网站？注销了Facebook账户？这么做的人可不只你一个。

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

据称，因担心隐私外泄或者只是厌倦了使用社交网站，英国上月有十万人注销了Facebook账户。

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

“Facebook疲劳”似乎也能传染。数据显示，美国也有六百万人永久注销了账户。

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.

从全球来看，Facebook用户量的增速已连续第二个月出现下滑。Facebook的目标是活跃用户达到10亿，但现在不得不依靠发展中国家来增加用户量了。

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

数据显示，Facebook用户量的饱和度有“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’.

还有人发表博文，担心Facebook将来会像其衰败的竞争对手MySpace一样“星光璀璨，而又迅速陨灭”。

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

今年早些时候，Facebook高管宣布英国用户量达到三千万，占全英总人口的一半。

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

与去年七月相比，英国Facebook用户量增加了四百万，堪称里程碑。英国的Facebook用户饱和度目前在欧洲居首。

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.

但如今局势生变，仅在上月英国就有超过10万人注销了账户。在美国，Facebook用户量在五月从1.552亿人下降到1.494亿人。加拿大用户量也减少了大约150万人。在俄罗斯和挪威，用户量也减少了超过10万人。

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.

但对Facebook来说也有好消息。从全球来看，Facebook的用户量仍在上升，约为6亿人，这有赖于墨西哥、巴西等国用户量的大量增长。

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.

美国科技博客网站Inside Facebook的埃里克 埃尔登介绍称，Facebook在某一国家面世后，用户量的增长存在上限。该网站通过公司的广告工具分析得出了上述数据。

‘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.

他解释说：“Facebook在某个国家的用户量达到人口总量的大约一半后，就逐渐停止增长了。”