The latest numbers from Hitwise show that MySpace and Facebook continue their dominance of the social networking space.
Combined these two behemoths attract over 91% of all social networking visitors, up from 89% in September 2006.
Market Share of US Internet Visits to Top 20 Social Networking Sites, February 2007*
1 MySpace 81%
2 Facebook 10%
3 Bebo 1%
4 BlackPlanet 0.88%
5 Xanga 0.87%
6 iMeem 0.73%
7 Yahoo! 360 up 0.72%
8 Classmates up 0.72%
9 hi5 0.69%
10 Tagged 0.67%
11 LiveJournal 0.49%
12 Gaiaonline 0.48%
13 Friendster 0.34%
14 Orkut 0.26%
15 Live Spaces 0.18%
16 HoverSpot 0.18%
17 Buzznet 0.18%
18 Sconex 0.14%
19 MiGente.com 0.11%
20 myYearbook 0.11%
Based on Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users.
Most of the media coverage was focused on the news from Hitwise that the US market share of Internet traffic to the top 20 social networking sites grew by 11.5% from January to February 2007. Less widely reported was the news that Year-over-year (February 2006 - February 2007) traffic to the top 20 social networking sites increased by 87%.
As LeeAnn Prescott of Hitwise put it:
While MySpace is still by far the dominant social networking site, capturing more than 80% of visits to the category, the category is still growing at a rapid pace, and the growth of these newer sites shows that it hasn’t yet plateaued.
What I find fascinating about MySpace is the halo effect that it provides to other social networking sites.
Last year I wrote about how in September 2006, 24% of the traffic to the top nineteen social sites came from MySpace. In February 2007, MySpace accounted for 25.8% of the traffic to these other sites. That indicates to me that while users are trying out other social sites like Bebo, Buzznet and iMeem they are not giving up their MySpace connection.
If your social marketing plan includes social networking you cannot afford not be seen on MySpace. MySpace dominates the social networking category much like Google dominates the search engine category. Much like the fact that if you are not on Google’s first page that you are not seen by searchers, if you do not have a presence on MySpace then you are invisible to the social networking community.
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