As Facebook announces it’s growth to over 500 million users worldwide, BBC Online has published an interesting infographic on how some of the older social networks have suffered as a result.

Interesting to see the almost complete demise of Friends Reunited - this was once the darling of social media and tipped for greatness.  You also have to wonder about Bebo - bought by AOL for $850 million in 2008 and sold last month for between $2.5 and $10 million, it really has been an astonishing fall from grace.  Meanwhile LinkedIn continues to stumble – in Europe at least.  The numbers posted for it’s membership really are surprisingly low too.

One wonders whether there is room in the market for all of these different and unconnected social networks.  You can keep work and personal life pretty seperate with LinkedIn and Facebook, but as this piece on SFGate points out, social networks face an uncertain future because they overlap in a way that one’s ‘real’ networks do not.

The piece also publishes the ‘Five Stages of Facebook grief’ which begin at confusion, lead to discovery and utility, only to be followed by embarrassment and finally, withdrawal!

It will be interesting to see whether social networks continue to consolidate or fragment out with each fullfilling a particular role.  Maybe we should keep the middle-aged on Facebook, as they continue to join in droves, meanwhile move the oldies onto Wrinklefacebook and the young hipsters onto Freshfacebook!?