Hitwise recently reported that MySpace.com received 74% of U.S Social Networking visits for April 2008, down from 78% in April 2007. Facebook on the other hand saw its market share rise from 11% in April 2007 to almost 15% in 2008 (a 32% gain).

Without looking, can you name the top five social networking sites in the U.S. by market share? Myyearbook.com really surprised me as it does not get much mainstream media attention, but it has quietly taking the third spot in the U.S. from Bebo.

‘Social networking websites continue to attract loyal visitors who return regularly to communicate with their friends, particularly for MySpace and Facebook, the market leaders’ said Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise. ‘The growing number of applications and amount of content available for social networks are driving higher average visit times for the category, providing marketers with additional opportunities to reach these active users.’

Market Share of U.S. Traffic from New and Returning Visitors for April 2008 – Ranked by Returning Visitors

Note – a returning visitor is defined as a user that has visited the site in the past 30 days from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users.

In April 2008, MySpace received 95 percent of its visits from returning visitors. Among the top five social networking websites by market share, Facebook and MyYearbook.com followed with 93 and 90 percent, respectively, of traffic returning from within the previous 30 days.

These numbers are interesting as they indicate that MySpace and Facebook might have peaked in terms of visitors ad they are attracting fewer and fewer new users. This is something that will worry investors as it means that these sites will have a harder time selling advertising space. The Bebo.com numbers are inflated I believe because of its purchase of AOL and the introduction of the site to the AOL user base.

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Tagged as: Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, social networks