Research Indicates Facebook's Appeal is Dropping

[engine]

I am aware of a few of my contacts that have stopped using FB. I suspect it's mostly down to privacy issues, rather than the fact FB is now a public company.

Research Indicates Facebook's Appeal is Dropping [blogs.smartmoney.com]

Facebook seems to have soured users as well as investors with its initial public offering, a new poll shows.

Facebook’s shares remained down 24% Wednesday from the $38 IPO price of May 18. During that same stretch, the site dropped from No. 1 to No. 4 in the “Customer Loyalty Engagement Index,” a measure of brand perception among 49,000 social networkers polled by marketing consultancy Brand Keys. The index now rates Facebook alongside LinkedIn, and behind Twitter and YouTube. “There’s no doubt that Facebook’s brand was weakened by the events surrounding the IPO,” says Robert Passikoff, founder of Brand Keys. “Originally people felt that they were part of a community and now, for better or for worse, they feel like they are part of a business.”

[Wlauzon]

I know a lot of people that have simply stopped using it, including me. Nothing to do with privacy, just boring.

[getcooking]

They also just added a pay-to-post feature for fan/brand pages. Without it, only around 16% of people who have "liked" your page will see your post. You can get your post to more eyeballs by paying in increments of $5/400 fans (at least that's the pricing my page shows me). AdAge mentioned this a few months back but it looks like it was finally rolled out yesterday. Brands have already been grumbling that they aren't seeing the returns they'd like on their ad dollars. GM completely pulled their ad budget from Facebook. They are such a big player in the ad industry I wouldn't be surprised to see others follow their lead. Without those ad dollars, Facebook might really start to get greedy (greedier) and that will definitely turn users off.