MySpace Towers Above Other Social Networks

LeeAnn Prescott at Hitwise talks about social networking sites in April, and it appears that MySpace could be more dominant than many people think. In fact, the numbers referred to in her blog post makes Google’s dominance of search look civilian.

According to Hitwise figures, MySpace took in 79.7% of U.S. visits to social networking sites in April. This is more than seven times as much as the second place Facebook, which garnered 11.5% of U.S. visits.

Bebo (1.28%), Imeem (1.03%), and BlackPlanet.com (0.87%) rounded out the top five.

To add to this impressive showing by MySpace, Prescott also notes that 24.9% of all upstream clicks to the other 19 social networking sites in the top 20 list came from MySpace.

Prescott also points to numbers that indicate that Facebook’s decision to open themselves up to the general public was a good move in terms of the site’s size. Facebook grew 106% since its decision in September to become less exclusive.

Facebook also drove 2.85% of upstream traffic to the other 19 social networking competitors in April, a jump of 185% compared to September. However, this number seems to have dropped off a bit in May.

On Monday, MySpace announced that they would comply with several states and provide them with data concerning registered sex offenders that they have identified and taken off the site.

After signaling a reluctance to agree to submit this information last week, MySpace general counsel Mike Angus said that the company was happy to provide the states with this information.

"From day one, we have preserved all the information in the hopes of getting these requests," he said.

There are still attorney generals who are strongly urging MySpace to set up stronger requirements for age verification.

Sources:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/leeann-prescott/2007/05/
facebook_visits_up_106_since_o.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070521/ap_on_hi_te/myspace
_sex_offenders;_ylt=Ajd_wxctTz5OxyDCmxCbIZz6VbIF