Top Social Networks: Who’s losing to MySpace
Written by Ceri Kirkland (contact - e-mail) -- April 12th, 2007 | Share - Save - E-mailSomewhere between Instant Messenger Profiles and Vertical “People” search engines, social networking has become a keystone of the web. And much like the beer bearing the same name, it’s cheap, facilitates conversation, and is consumed primarily by younger people. As social networking continues its rapid adoption, the diversification of the social networking sites makes it an important segment to assess.
The table above ranks the top twenty social networking sites by the amount of attention* that each site received in March ’07. What is immediately apparent is that ranking by total visitors to a social networking site gives a poor representation of a sites true popularity. Since visitors are (arguably) using these sites to socialize, more time spent on a site indicates involvement. While MySpace and Facebook are the two largest sites in terms of both UVs and Attention, the rest of the list changes dramatically.
- Bebo, a relative new player in the space, has more than tripled in both unique visitors and attention from March 2006 to March 2007. By attracting and engaging quality traffic, the site leaps from 9th rank in Unique Visitors to third in Attention.
- Reunion and Tickle which both rely heavily on pop-up and banner advertising to drive traffic, plummet from 4th and 6th in UVs to 13th and 14th in Attention.
- If one person accounted for all of the time spent on MySpace in March of 2007, he would be surfing for the next 52,214 years.
The chart above illustrates the change in monthly attention that each site has experienced from March 2006 compared to March 2007.
- MySpace, the dominant leader in the category, has grown by more than 23% during the period.
- Growth in visitors and the amount of time these visitors spend on the site has spurred growth of over 250% in Bebo’s attention share.
- Friendster, which gained popularity as one of the first social networking sites, continues to lose ground on the category, falling by nearly 50%.
As the broader internet becomes more social, the real challenge for networking sites will be visitor retention. Can any of these sites make a dent in MySpace? With sites like wink allowing for cross-site searches, a dramatic shift away from the monster of the space may be waiting in the wings… stay tuned.
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April 12th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Could you break down the top chart (Attention) a little more please? Particularly the “Total Time On Site (Years)” section….could you go in depth on what formula you’re using to reach each number listed? I’d also like a breakdown of the “Rank (Visitors)” number that you have listed for each site.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
The first chart represents total time we collectively spend on each social networking site and apply it to one person’s lifetime. That way we can see the total time in years. Total/collective time spent on a site (minutes)/(60*24*365) = time in years for 1 person.
The “Rank (Visitors)” is based on unique visitors for each site categorized as a social networking site. For example, out of all social networking sites Facebook has the 2nd greatest amount of unique visitors. I hope this gives you some clarity!
April 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Frank,
Attention on a site is driven by three elements – the people count of the visitors to the site, the frequency with which they return to the site and the average stay when they visit. Those elements are each provided through SnapShot at http://snapshot.compete.com. Arrayed in the table below, these elements provide some interesting insights:
• The frequency of visitation is declining on all three sites. Are new users less engaged in social networking?
• The average stay is declining for MySpace. Along with its decreased frequency of visits, are there cracks in MySpace’s growth path?
• Bebo’s average stay has grown a lot in a year and its average stay now rivals MySpace. The combination of big growth in people counts and longer stays is drive the attention to Bebo. Now it Bebo could just get its people to come back more often…
• The average stay on Facebook is about half of its two big rivals, but at least it’s growing a little.
Elements of Attention
Attention
(years)
People Counts (000/month)
Frequency*
(monthly visits/person)
Average Stay
(minutes)
MySpace.com
52,214
60,046
38%
17.4
-21%
25:58
-8%
Facebook.com
5,139
14,871
55%
13.8
-28%
13:12
8%
Bebo.com
996
2,499
69%
8.5
-33%
24:50
40%
* Frequency = Visits/People Counts, both from http://www.compete.com
July 10th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Nice summarization. MySpace is predominantly used by the younger generations, especially teenagers. My teenage daughter will spend hours on there especially at weekends, which I don’t think is that healthy either. So when she visits me it is considerably less.
But that is beside the point. The interesting thing is the rapid growth of other sites. Now many marketers try to ram it down our throats about marketing on MySpace, is this because they want to keep the growing sites for themselves?
How long before the popularity of MySpace as a marketing point disappears? It was never designed for marketers to peddle what is frequently a load of tripe.
I see it as a good thing that more social networking sites are on the increase, but that is a personal opinion.
July 11th, 2007 at 7:28 am
A really well investigated and concise post.
December 18th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
i love myspace
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i love myspace alot
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