Growth of Facebook leaves MySpace in dust
Social networking is definitely seeing a reshuffling of its top players.
Facebook and Twitter are in, MySpace is out, according to Experian Hitwise.
The Internet monitoring company reported last week that Facebook, the No. 1 social network in the U.S., grew its share of all the visits to social-networking sites from 19 percent in September 2008 year to 58.6 a year later. That's a more than 190 percent increase.
Over the same period, Twitter's share jumped from 0.15 percent to 1.84 percent, and the service now ranks as the fourth largest social network.
Ailing MySpace, which is scurrying to remake itself into an entertainment portal, is still in second place behind Facebook, but scores of users have begun walking away.
According to Hitwise, MySpace can still boast 30 percent of the social-networking market, but the site is in freefall. Last year at this time, MySpace captured 66.8 percent of the market.
MySpace is hunkering down to develop more compelling music and video services, but it needs to emerge quickly from its chrysalis with something attractive to offer.
Once the traffic goes, then content owners--such as the musical acts that promote themselves on the site--may be the next to flee.
Overall, U.S. visits to social networking Web sites rose 62 percent from September 2008 to September 2009, according to Hitwise, which tracks 155 such sites.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
As an artist myself, it's becoming less and less attractive to promote my music on there, simply because lots of people never take the time to log on there anymore.
Probably because there are only so many hours in a day, and lots of sites that'll give you "free promotion".
My business has a presence on MySpace, but we never maintain it. It's just not worth it. We have about ten times more people following us on Facebook and Twitter, so that's where we focus our energy.
Facebook - Nice and clean, uncluttered, nothing flashing in your face (similar to Google; simplistic yet functional).
MySpace - HELLO! FULL PAGE CRAZY GRAPHICS! CHECK OUT THIS MOVIE THAT PAID US TO PLASTER ITS PROMOS ALL OVER THE SCREEN! HEY LOOK AT MY PROFILE WITH 20 ANIMATED GIFS AND MY COOL BACKGROUND!
Yuck. Good job, Facebook, way to respect the end user.
The tons of spam drove me away as well.
Friendster is #1 in just about every Asian country and #2 worldwide
which is surprising because Friendster is horrible, its like Myspace but with tons of bugs
Friendster actually has the potential to be #1 worldwide as the Asian market continues to grow
Twitter = No drunk photos, a fake name usually (which protects you), no long lists of everyone you've ever met in your life (along with their names and photos)
Facebook = all the above. By all means use it, if you want but make sure you are private and don't have the view friends link visible. Because if any of your friends have public profiles your privacy is compromised.
Say you have a private facebook profile. Good. But If I do a google search for you I will probably find a page that has a photo of you and a list of some of your friends. And a few links to contact you. This alerts me to the fact you are indeed on Facebook.
So I go into Facebook. I find you, and find that I can't get into your profile because you are private. Good. But, if I can see all your friends, via the 'view friends' link, well, I have a list of all your 'friends' for a start. That a bit of security breach right there.
So I start clicking on all your friends one by one, private, private, private, oh, this one has a public profile. Oh look you have made this comment on this persons wall. Me (the stalker) can see this. Oh this public person went to a party with you and I can see you in their photos. See where I'm coming from?
Now this only works if you are in the same 'network' and the for people who have literally not bothered with thier privacy settings and are just sitting ducks. When you first join Facebook, yes everyone is private. But just join a network and all those people in that network who are public will all magically become accessable. That privacy setting 'some of my networks' and 'some of my friends'.
Just something to be aware of. If YOU are private but you're chatting with someone who is PUBLIC then a third party can see your words on the public persons profile.
Stay safe.
No - what is killing MySpace is the same thing that regulates which IM client you use most often. Most would agree that AIM is crap compared to Yahoo IM, with Windows/MSN Messenger somewhere in between... but most people still are using AIM. Why? Because that is the network that most of their friends & family use. (of course ideally a muti-protocol client like Digsby, Pidgin/Adium or Trillian is your best choice today). Same thing with Facebook. I was using and loved MySpace for years but then discovered that everyone I knew on MySpace was also on Facebook and A LOT of friends that weren't on MySpace are on Facebook. So I started using Facebook more and more - even though I still love MySpace for all it provides.
That is why Facebook is winning. Ironically it could be the fact that you must have an account to view a profile that started the snowball down the hill.... but who knows? Maybe it started with all the absurd bad press over MySpace or the fact that didn't introduce a "lite" option soon enough to control those profile creators that seem to never even look at the eyesores they designed. I think it (like with IM) ultimately boils down to where all of your friends & family are. That's what a social network is for after all.
- by inachu1 October 19, 2009 3:47 AM PDT
- I stopped using myspace for 2 reasons.
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(33 Comments)MALWARE/TROJANS
and everyones page has music played on first visit.
tired of muting my speakers.
facebok is more userfriendly.