Like many moviegoers, I’m eagerly awaiting the film version of the classic Alan Moore Watchmen comics, opening Friday. Although I’ve been getting most of my information about the movie through friends, and most recently an article in Wired, I wondered where people are going online to learn more about this highly-anticipated fill.

I analyzed where people who used terms including the keyword ‘watchmen’ on major search engines were directed over the last 10 weeks. The chart below shows the top 10 sites that these people were referred to by keyword share and the percentage of all traffic generated by searches including the keyword ‘watchmen’ that went to a particular site.

Even though the studio site was the #1 destination for these searchers, and official movie sites figured prominently into the top 10, much of the search traffic for this film was referred to social media sites.

• The official studio site was the #1 destination for searchers in this period: about 18.5% of people who searched for “watchmen” keyword were directed there. In fact, ‘watchmen’ was the 4th most popular keyword for warnerbros.com in general, generating almost 3% of the domain’s total search referrals over this same period.
• Wikipedia, at 18.4% of keyword referrals, was a close second in terms of most referrals, ranking above dedicated movie site IMDb.
• Social media sites took up three of the top 10 spots:
  • YouTube ranked fourth. Although the Watchmen-related videos were posted by individuals, one member did say the studio had given him permission to use official copies.
  • Blogspot was #9 by keyword referral, and MySpace rounded out the top 10.

In the next few weeks it’s likely that the flow of traffic to Watchmen-related destinations will change as people considering going to see the movie search for reviews. Visits to other review and social media sites – like Rotten Tomatoes (#11), Facebook (#12) and Twitter (#21) – will likely increase. Still, the fact that so much of this initial search traffic is going to social media sites before the release date suggests that the channel is an important information source for audiences even weeks before they buy a ticket.

So movie marketers take note: social media matters even before the movie is released. And, it’s making Watchmen look pretty cool.

See you at the movies.

Earlier this month, Compete reported that Facebook overtook MySpace in Unique Visitors trafficking to the site:

Sure, this was a symbolic takeover, but it should have come as no surprise to anyone closely monitoring the two social giants over the past year.

Using a few different Compete PRO Site Analytics reports, I drilled down to take a closer look at trended traffic to understand the key metrics around Facebook’s rise to power in the social media arena.

The First Blow: October 2007 - Stickiness

While Unique Visitor data is certainly newsworthy, given Social Media’s value proposition to advertisers from an engagement perspective, the stickiness metrics are arguably more important than high level site traffic alone. Looking at historical engagement data, I rolled back the clock to October 2007, where we see Facebook eclipsing MySpace in the number of pages per visit for a visitor. This would prove to be the first of many battles won by Facebook along the way.

Round 2: Reach

Examining Daily Reach (people visiting a site on a given day as a percentage of all internet users on that day) over the past 6 months, we see that on January 4th, Facebook overtook MySpace in terms of Reach, surging forward in February to achieve a remarkable 15% (and climbing) Reach vs. 11% for MySpace.

Round 3: Attention

In terms of time spent, Monthly Attention (percentage of time spent on a site as a percentage of total time spent online) illustrates Facebook’s robust growth over the last year. In early 2008, approximately 7% of all time spent online was on MySpace (vs. 1.5% for Facebook), but as the year rolled along, Facebook gained more and more attention, eventually overtaking MySpace in October. As of January 2009, 5% of all time spent online was on Facebook, more than double MySpace.

The Knockout Punch?: Average Stay

If you’re MySpace, the graph below certainly stings – in the past two years, average stay for a visitor to the site has dropped from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. In the meantime, Facebook has steadily upped this number, leaving its rival in the dust. As of January 2009, Facebook kept visitors engaged on site over 7 minutes longer on average than MySpace, with the average stay still on the rise.

What will the rest of 2009 bring for both of these sites? The Compete team will continue to track the story going forward, but in the meantime, get in on the action yourself on compete.com.

I found an unfamiliar email from Facebook in my inbox last month, “Somebody tagged you in the note 25 Random Things About Me.” Clicking through, I found I’d been tagged by a friend in a mini-autobiography about her dream job (writing children’s books) and Kombucha infatuation. Turns out, I was not alone.

In January, roughly 4X more people than usual visited the Notes section of Facebook. Nobody knows how it started, but “25 Random Things” has been a viral boondoggle for Notes, bringing the equivalent of the entire population of New York City into a virtual game of tag within its walls.

The charts below show the popularity of Notes taking-off in terms of volume and reach into Facebook’s overall US visitors.

Nearly 20 million people in the US visited Notes in January, or 28% of all the visitors to Facebook in that month. That’s 4x more than the average month in 2008.

Compare that to Photos, the most popular section of Facebook, which consistently captures the attention 60% of Facebook visitors each month. Or Apps, the much discussed ecosystem of Gangster Wars, Sheep Throwing and Movie Favorites, which maintains a roughly 40% monthly share.

It will be interesting to see if “25 Random Things” is just a one-hitter for Notes, or if it will translate into sustained interest.

One trend that is likely to continue is overall Facebook growth. Over the past two years, Facebook has exploded from innovations like the App Platform, savvy strategy like indexing user profiles and beneficial network effects at play in “25 Random Things”.

In December 2008, Facebook grew 21% - the largest single-month increase of unique visitors over the past two years. In January 2009, Facebook grew 15% - the fourth largest.

However, unique visitors are not necessarily the complete picture. The metric includes members who did not visit the site the month before, but previously created a profile.

To get a truer sense of growth, we looked at just new members, or those who created a profile. Facebook dramatically accelerated new member acquisition in January, with 60% more profiles created than in December.

Can Facebook continue this amazing growth?

At only half of Google’s visitors, there is room to grow. And with the traffic base and technology to spur viral trends like “25 Random Things,” Facebook is positioned to invite everyone on the web to post their inter-connected life stories.

With Facebook officially turning five years old recently, combined with the site surging past MySpace in Monthly Unique Visitors, it seems like a good time to take a little deeper look at the social networking giants.

It’s hard to believe that last year around this time we discussing the effects of bad PR for Facebook and if the site had ‘jumped the shark,’ but those arguments now seem to more appropriately apply to other properties.

A year ago, we ranked the top 25 social networking sites by monthly visits, and I was curious to see how the positions would change if we re-ranked those same sites with the most recent figures.

Some key metrics in the health of a social network revolve around the activity of the user base – visits per unique visitor and time on site. While Facebook has excelled in both areas, MySpace has remained flat or fallen off, with new hot property Twitter climbing the ranks.

MySpace is still the clear number two player in the big categories, but its trends in some key areas aren’t quite so dominatingl and, at least in those areas, they could be looking up at more than Facebook soon.

A few weeks ago, I logged on to Facebook to see if any of my friends had dared to challenge me in another game of word twist. As was expected, due to my unprecedented dominance in the game, no one had. What was not expected, however, was an inconspicuous link at the top of the page telling me to try the “New” Facebook. So, I decided to check it out.

This “New” Facebook had an entirely different layout, putting many elements of friends’ Profiles on various tabs and allowing for greater control of what your friends see on your profile. In my opinion, the change was an upgrade. Gone were the days of needing to scroll past super pokes, ninja and pirate fights, graffiti, aquariums, and the latest roshombo matches to write on the walls of friends who don’t seem to know how to click “no” to application invites. In general, things felt cleaner and easier to use. Not everybody sees it the way I do though. When I showed it to my boyfriend, he was appalled at the changes. He had gotten used to Facebook’s layout and did not want to go through the hassle of learning a new layout and figuring out how to do what he wants to do on Facebook. Luckily for him, Facebook was kind enough to put a link at the top of the “New” Facebook allowing you to go back to the “old” Facebook experience. He eagerly went back to the familiar styles he has come to love. Facebook is clearly being cautious with this release, providing links to allow users to give feedback and input prior to the full release. A friend who signed up for Facebook last week was even introduced to the “old” Facebook, rather than pushed to the new, indicating Facebook is not ready to make the new site the standard. The “beta” testing style of this release made me curious as to how many Facebook users have decided to check out the “New” Facebook since its rollout.

Since it’s rollout, the “New” Facebook has progressively attracted more visitors as the weeks of summer roll by. As of the week of August 10th, more than half of all Facebook users have at least checked out the new site. By the week of August 17th, that visitor count had topped 60% of all Facebook users. Because Facebook has slowly rolled out this new site, inviting more and more people to check out the “New” Facebook each week, this chart only tells us half the story. It is also important to look at how many users checked out the “New” facebook and then decided to go back to the old style in the same session.

Facebook users using the “New” Facebook are slowly trending towards only using it, rather than clicking to go back to the old. This has leveled off in the last couple of weeks, holding steady at about 40% of Facebook users checking out the new site deciding to click back to the old. Having 60% of users continue on to use the new site is good news for Facebook, as it indicates users are beginning to come around to the new style. It is clear that Facebook has learned and grown from its last major new release. For those of you that don’t recall, in Sept. 2006 Facebook suddenly unveiled its “mini feed”which shocked and scared off many of its users with its openess and seemingly invasion of privacy. This time around, Facebook is letting its users get accostomed to the new style at their own pace, as well as allowing them to provide feedback regarding the new design. Hopefully for Facebook, this will result in more satisfied users, while –in my opinion–providing users with a cleaner, more streamlined Facebook experience.

In at least one way, early social networks are like a high school party - when parents get home the fun stops and everybody leaves. But as social elements become the driving force behind many of the web’s most popular sites, an increasing number of consumers young and old are finding casual online conversation crucial in maintaining and expanding business relationships…which helps explain howLinkedin recently closed a round of funding with a $1 billion valuation.

The real story is in how mass migration of professional relationships from the Rolodex to the Friend List has taken place. In June, we took a look at two sites that share the responsibility of powering professional networking, albeit in somewhat different ways. While Linkedin.com was built on a platform of social networking for business, Facebook.com - still far from business focused - grew into the role as many of its early members did the same. So in terms of current users, how do these sites compare?

Age can provide insight into who is using a site and, at least in the case of Linkedin and Facebook, how. The chart above shows how site traffic breaks for both sites, based on unique visitors in June 2008. Unsurprisingly, Facebook’s audience skews younger than Linkedin but it is important to note that both sites receive nearly 90% of their traffic from people under the age of 55.

Facebook - growing up or losing the cool factor?
Age of current site visitors has more meaning in historical context, and both Facebook and Linkedin have changed quite a bit in the course of a year. The chart below shows the year over year change in age breakdown for both sites.

• Facebook visitors are “maturing”: In June of 2007, nearly over 35% of Facebook traffic came the 18-24 year old segment, compared to around 22% in June 2008. With the bulk of this traffic shifting towards the 25-35 year old group, this movement could be a result of the site’s original base of college students.
• Rising stars shine on Linkedin: In a reversal of Facebook’s changing demographics, Linkedin’s audience has shifted younger, with the 18-24, and 25-35 year old segments both growing by nearly 15%. This was also during a period of massive overall site growth - driven at least partially by an influx of younger visitors.

Is there Room a need for both?
The most profound difference between Linkedin and Facebook lies in their focus on professional and personal networking (respectively). Looking at the overlap between the two networks, it appears that many people are either separating these two functions, or simply maintaining an identity on both sites. The chart below shows the percentage of Facebook and Linkedin users, broken out by age group, who used both sites (or one site exclusively) in June. The chart to the bottom right also illustrates the change in each overlap segment from the previous year.

• Between the two sites, Facebook dominates with an average of 80% of the group using Facebook exclusively.
• 25-44 is the sweet spot for Linkedin with the site attracting more than 20% of both groups. These two age groups were also the most likely to be active on both Linkedin and Facebook, with around 12% of both groups showing overlap.
• 1+1=900%: While the dramatic growth of the segment of users visiting both sites (as well as the growth in Linkedin exclusive visitors) is partially due to site growth, the 900% growth in the percentage of users visiting both sites seems to indicate that these sites are more complimentary than competitive.

With online services like Twitter and Friendfeed continuing to blur the line between casual and business, the ability to use a single site as both a personal and professional networking tool becomes more realistic. But whether the “Poke” will ever make it into a sales strategy is still anyone’s guess.