MySpace about to lose out to Facebook in U.S.?
The team at Pingdom, a firm that focuses primarily on uptime and performance, has posted a new blog entry estimating that Facebook will overtake MySpace as the top social network in the U.S. within a month or two. That's largely because, according to the same numbers, Facebook has doubled in size in the past year.
Several months ago, traffic firm ComScore noted that Facebook--a year ago far smaller than the News Corp.-owned MySpace--was starting to pass its rival in worldwide traffic. But in the U.S., which still has the big ad dollars, MySpace remained bigger.
There's something to note, though: Pingdom used Google Trends to make its assessment. Google Trends traffic data is one of only many sources of statistics out there, and it's collected primarily from people who have installed the Google toolbar. Numbers from Compete.com, for example, show that MySpace is still ahead.
Even according to Pingdom's numbers, MySpace doesn't appear to be shrinking. The performance firm thinks that could be due to a number of factors: that MySpace is continuing to recruit new users to replace those who may have left for Facebook, that people are using both social networks, or that Facebook is recruiting members who haven't been prior users of either site.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
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some like getting music blasted through their speakers at 64kbits/s at 22khz or enjoy spammin everyone on the friggin earth for friend invites
others enjoy the clean look of facebook and spammin less people for friend invites.
This is a non-story...the methodology used is a single graph, which according to this very story was countered by another single-method counting system. Couldn't this story have very well stated "MySpace still bigger than Facebook?" Would that have sounded as nice as the one we've got?
Again, stunning alarmist behavior to a tech site far more interested in pushing specific technology than researching objectively and passing along facts - complete facts. Terrible journalism here.
Besides, do we really need this kind of headline when so many people are in alarmist-mode about the ecomony? CNet and Carolline McCarthy should take some responsibility for stabilizing and calming the tech community during the wall street crisis. We don't believe you're innocently "reading restaurant blogs" by the way; you must be well aware of inciting investors to flee the site.
I have accounts with both Facebook and Myspace, and will continue to keep them up, because two different groups of friends use them for their communication. Yet I still prefer the look of Myspace since it supports more individuality on the homepages. Too bad Facebook always highlights the annoying twitter-type posting; looks like Myspace has followed suit...too much drama in all of these sites...we could have stayed on Friendster after all.
MySpace is a depth of content, open broadcast site. Facebook is a distribution, gated community site. You can't blog on Facebook. You won't get 6 million views on a video on Facebook.
Why won't people compare apples with apples?
- by Laurel Papworth October 13, 2008 4:13 PM PDT
- @paconnell average age on MySpace? 35 (and women) Average age on Facebook? 25. Has been for a couple of years now. There's a reason the luxury brands and Mother's Day stuff is moving into MySpace :)
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