When something new succeeds, the people who were first to embrace it often get money, admiration, and some other nice things. But when it fails, they just lose. And it seems like social network advertising is still a less than great idea.

Fresh comScore data shows that use of social networking sites in the U.S. is slowing. People haven’t abandoned these things, of course, but there was an actual decline, rather than just less-fast growth.

Now, if you want to spend time making business profiles on MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn, by all means, go ahead. So long as you’re not ignoring other things, there’s nothing to lose as a result of embracing “free.” Just be careful that you don’t go overboard with either time or money.

Google itself seems to have lost a bet on social networking; during a disappointing earnings call, George Reyes, the company’s chief financial officer, stated, “We have found that social networks are not monetizing as well as we were expecting.”

Google’s stock is down about $40 today, by the way. There may not be a direct A to B connection, but just the same, I don’t want to see that sort of thing happen to any of you.

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