Facebook Gaining Ground on MySpace - Still a Long Ways to Go
| Manoj Jasra - Friday, September 26, 2008 1 Comments |
MySpace.com received 67.54 percent of the market share of U.S. visits in August 2008 among a custom category of 56 of the leading social networking websites according to Hitwise. The market share of U.S.visits to the social networking custom category decreased 2 percent in August 2008 to 6.40 percent of all U.S. visits compared to July 2008. Visits to the category decreased 17 percent year-over-year.
| Top 5 Social Networking Websites Ranked by Market Share of U.S. Internet Visits | ||||||
| Rank | Name | Domain | Aug-08 | Jul-08 | Aug-07 | YoY %Change |
| 1 | MySpace | www.myspace.com | 67.54% | 68.23% | 75.04% | -10% |
| 2 | www.facebook.com | 20.56% | 19.48% | 13.68% | 50% | |
| 3 | myYearbook | www.myyearbook.com | 1.65% | 1.58% | 0.46% | 256% |
| 4 | Tagged | www.tagged.com | 1.53% | 1.35% | 0.62% | 147% |
| 5 | Bebo | www.bebo.com | 0.94% | 1.13% | 1.38% | -32% |
| Note - data is based on a custom category of 56 of the leading social networking websites ranked by market share of U.S. visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context. | ||||||
| Source: Hitwise | ||||||
Among the top 10 social networking websites, Facebook ranked second by market share of U.S. visits with 20.56 percent, followed by myYearbook, which received 1.65 percent. MyYearbook experienced the largest gain in market share in August 2008 among the top five visited websites, increasing 256 percent compared to August 2007. Tagged and Facebook followed, increasing 147 and 50 percent, respectively.
Labels: Facebook, MySpace, social media
It's interesting to see that the US seems to be going the way of Canada with its choice of social media sites. Canada has long been a leader in Facebook take-ups (Toronto in particular seems very enthralled by Facebook - bizarre).
I still believe that these figures are beginning to mark a peak in take-ups and that micro sites will be the next big thing, especially for businesses trying to use social media to their advantage.
You can check out my feelings on the subject at my blog post, if you're interested:
* http://pressreleaseprblog.com/2008/09/25/are-micro-sites-the-next-wave-of-business-promotion/