Facebook: Nielsen got it wrong, our U.K. traffic is up

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Jordan Golson

02/22/08 06:30PM

Filed to: Stats

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Traffic-tracking service Nielsen Online claims Facebook lost 400,000 U.K. visitors from December to January. Mark Zuckerberg & Co. say no way:

The number of users for Facebook continues to climb in the U.K. Our internal monthly active user numbers rose between December and January in the U.K. and are now at more than 8.3 million. Facebook tracks active monthly users, rather than registered user or unique visitors. Active users reflect those who have used the site in the past 30 days.

(Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma)

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pepelicious Jordan Golson 02/22/08 08:23PM

There is some merit to relying on the number of active members to a social network. Aside from the obvious subjectivity of being able to determine what 'active' means, active members tend to stick around longer.

However there's also the issue of burning through millions of potential active members while trying to get your business model & community features sewn up. It's usually pretty hard to win those people back. Less new eyeballs and old eyeballs that have tuned out ads are not good for a company that wants to use ad revenue as their main revenue stream.

I'd be interested to find out what percentage of the total site visitors actually become activated - as well the activation number beyond 30 days.