Oh, don't act like you didn't know it would happen. For how long could there be endless growth on Facebook? Not forever. And, in fact, in June, Facebook added less than 330 thousand new U.S. members (compared with May, when 7.8 million new U.S. were added). Don't kid yourself, Facebook is still a behemoth with 125 million U.S. users (or so it claims). But what accounted for the dramatic downtown? Like most dramatic downturns, it's probably a combination of several things.

There are only so many people in the U.S. who will join Facbook! Inside Facebook Gold will tell you that the U.S. market is just flat out of growth mode for social media. Though Facebook has seen growth of three to four percent monthly previously, eventually everybody who's going to be on Facebook is on Facebook.

The privacy issue scare had an impact. Though we think the Facebook privacy concerns are ridiculous given how freely people give up information on the internet, we don't doubt that analysts are correct that it impacted the number of people who joined Facebook in June. The question is, will it continue to?

We're over Facebook games. According to CNET, other than Farmville and Pet Society, most Facebook games have come and gone as fads and now we're not playing them any more.

Whatever the reason, we're not sure that it needs to trigger fear in the hearts of social marketers. Facebook is not Myspace and has shown a much better ability to make adjustments to acquire and retain users. That said, don't abandon your email list quite yet, my friends! As growth slows on Facebook, if in fact it continues to do so, you'll want those contact names and addresses!