By nickoneill on October 10, 2008 12:19 PM

Hitwise Publishes More Useless Numbers to Chew On

-Hitwise Logo- Looking for some interesting statistics on social networks? Good, because Hitwise publishes a new set of stats with negative implications every other Friday. The latest data shows that Facebook is the number two site in the United Kingdom and while it continues to grow, the pace is slowing rapidly. Is Facebook’s traffic going to drop because of the impeding doomsday recession? Hell no! Users are going to spend more time on the site since they aren’t out spending money.

Has Facebook begun to see a serious slow down in its growth? Honestly, I don’t think so. Compete statistics show that the company’s overall growth continues and while social networking growth domestically may be slowing a little, international growth potential is massive. That’s why we here about a new language translation service from social networks on a weekly basis.

The bubble isn’t bursting on social networks anytime soon and while I’d love to post a dramatic chart that can be used to claim death and destruction of social networks, all early warning signals have proven false time and time again. So if you are looking for a massive implosion somewhere on the web, you may want to target another space because it sure as hell isn’t happening here.

Mark Zuckerberg is so confident in his company’s growth that he was willing to suggest that the company doesn’t need to focus on monetization for another three years. Then again dramatic statements like that always make for a good headline so who knows how focused Facebook is on monetization behind the scenes. For now I am still long on social networks, especially Facebook.

If you want to argue otherwise, I suggest you take that negativity and put it into the stock market because there is plenty of that going around on Wall Street. Not in social networks though!