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Facebook Has 300M Users, Most Bored

Hunger for next big thing could bring social network down

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Oct 19, 2009 11:54 AM CDT

(Newser) – Facebook has finally turned a profit, and can boast 300 million users—and it may be on its way out. The web has seen dozens of social networking sites come, gain buzz, get huge, and then implode or mutate as users looked for the next big thing—remember Friendster, Livejournal, and MySpace? Now, some see the vultures circling Facebook, the Washington Post reports. At this point, unfriending people is hipper than friending them.

Some think Facebook could avoid that fate based on its sheer size; the site continues to grow faster than ever. But its fastest-growing segment is the over-55 crowd, and among other users, ennui has set in. “Facebook as a social networking website is not dead,” says one communications tech researcher. “Facebook as the cool new thing” is.

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A user logs onto Facebook in this file photo. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick)

A Facebook login page is seen on a computer screen in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Thursday, August 27, 2009. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Adrian Wyld)

Facebook.com's mastermind, Mark Zuckerberg smiles at his office in Palo Alto, Calif., in this Monday, Feb. 5, 2007 file photo. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, FILE)

Hunger for next big thing could bring social network down. (©miss_yasmina)

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One wonders if all social networking sites' lifecycles eventually include a David Hasselhoff phase—snubbed in America, gangbusters in Germany. - Monica Hesse

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Facebook Has 300M Users, Most Bored