Social networking musical chairs?
Maybe it is a zero sum game. The early media and Internet darling, Friendster has stalled at about a million visitors, while other sites like MySpace and Facebook have led the increase in traffic on social networking sites. As this Media Life story puts it, a social networking site is only as good as your network of friends on it, and teenagers (and some of us who're older) can change their preference overnight as one site becomes hot while another gets boring to them.
Maybe the Facebook guys who were hanging out outside their Palo Alto office some months ago, when they asked me about my Audi Blogit license plate, should have taken the supposed $750M offer while the going's good for them. Since the barrier to entry is so low.
Facebook had 10.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. in February, up from 2.8 million in February 2005, an increase of 271 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix.
MySpace has grown even faster in the U.S., clocking 37.3 million unique visitors in February from just under 9 million in February 2005, a growth of 318 percent, according to comScore Media Metrix.“That’s a boatload,” says Bob Ivins, managing director at comScore Europe. “It is great to see a site like this just take off because it talks to me about the huge opportunity that still exists on the web.”