Facebook soars past MySpace: report

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 14 August 2008 08:21

Business IT - Networking

An astonishing 153 percent visitor growth has seen Facebook depose MySpace as the world's top social networking site, according to figures published by a leading web measurement firm.

Social networking sites are important to advertisers as they attract large numbers of visitors that tend to linger and return frequently.

MySpace, which has around 120 million members, was acquired by News Corp for $US582 million in 2005.

Facebook, which was started by Mark Zuckerberg as a service exclusively for Harvard students, had a slower ramp up, opening up to the genral public in 2006. However, its growth has been astonishing and it now claims more than 90 million active (an important qualifier) members.  Last year Microsoft paid $US240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook, valuing the site at $US15 billion.

Just over a year ago, MySpace had double Facebook's audience. But now the tables have been turned after Facebook achieved a remarkable 153 percent growth spurt in the 12 months to June 2008 according to comScore. What was MySpace's growth for the same period? A paltry 3 percent.

Execs at MySpace are probably sweating over the comScore figures as all the other major sites clocked up double or triple-digit growth.

So how are sites such as Orkut faring? See page two.