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"A report by The Guardian\u00A0suggesting that \u201Cmillions of users\u201D have left Facebook has been refuted by Socialbakers, the social media analytics firm from which the figures were originally sourced.\r\n\r\nJan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers, took to the company blog today to explain to readers that the statistics were \u201Crough estimates\u201D and \u201Cnot primarily intended for journalists\u201D.\r\n\r\nThe company says the data was meant specifically for marketers, and follows a similar misreading by The Guardian three months ago.\r\n\r\n\u201CIn this article, I explained the stats in question, revealed the source of the stats, and admonished journalists against jumping to conclusions about them going forward,\u201D Rezab said.\r\n\r\n\u201CWell, (The) Guardian did not heed the advice, jumping to an even bigger conclusion this time.\u201D\r\n\r\nSocialbakers is emphasizing that the figures cannot be used to determine Facebook traffic, all but disproving the primary evidence for The Guardian\u2019s piece. \u201CThe bottom line here is that there is no story,\u201D Rezab said.\r\n\r\nThe figures reported by The Guardian suggested that Facebook had lost 6 million visitors in the United States throughout March, equal to a 4 percent decline. In addition, 1.4 million fewer users - a fall of 4.5 percent - accessed the social network from the UK over this period.\r\n\r\nThe newspaper reported a similar drop in users accessing Facebook from Canada, Spain, France, Germany and Japan.\r\n\r\nRezab sent a tweet earlier today highlighting his concerns:\r\n@jonrussell @tharum The best source is the Facebook public fillings, most exact numbers there. We say for journalists its NOT GOOD.\r\n\r\n\u2014 Jan Rezab (@janrezab) April 29, 2013\r\n&amp;amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\nIn fairness, The Guardian\u2019s reporter Juliette Garside contacted Facebook to verify the data and interviewed an additional source, new media specialist Ian Maude from Enders Analysis.\r\n\r\nMaude was quoted as saying that there was a \u201Cboredom factor\u201D associated with social networks such as Myspace, but that the risk for Facebook to go this way was \u201Crelatively small.\u201D\r\n\r\nPublic data exists to be examined, analyzed and published, but The Guardian's piece is a reminder that greater care needs to be taken before jumping to any sweeping conclusions.\r\n\r\nImage Credit:\u00A0Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/29/socialbakers-denies-report-that-millions-of-users-have-left-facebook-claims-there-is-no-story/>