As Facebook Surges In Traffic, More Bad News For MySpace
A March report on social networking traffic by market research firm ComScore said MySpace had 124 million unique monthly visitors in February. That means MySpace's traffic for the month is down 2 percent overall, according to ComScore, and remains in sharp contrast to Facebook, which increased its traffic by 16.6 percent to 276 million unique visitors in February.
A banner 2009 so far for Facebook -- and for social networking in general, which according to Nielsen has passed e-mail in consumer popularity -- has been rough going for MySpace.
Earlier this month, MySpace COO Amit Kapur and two other MySpace executives said they would leave MySpace for an unnamed startup. A number of tech blogs and other sources also continue to speculate that MySpace co-founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson are themselves planning an exit when their contracts are up in October 2009.
Facebook and My Space were neck and neck in worldwide traffic less than a year ago, and Facebook overtook MySpace for worldwide social networking traffic dominance in May 2008.
While MySpace is still the leading social networking site in the U.S., it was overtaken by Facebook in the U.K. as far back as September 2007, and lags behind Facebook in most European countries.
"In the last 12 months Facebook has extended its dominance in every territory in Europe," said Nick Thomas, an analyst for Forrester Research, to British newspaper The Guardian.
But don't be quick to count out MySpace, Thomas cautioned. "I'm not convinced that it's terminal for MySpace. The battle isn't over yet."