This has been a long time coming. Facebook has been steadily increasing reach while Myspace has been treading water. Over the course of the last 8 months facebook has seen its unique visitors double, growing its reach from 4% in September of last year to 8% today... an impressive achievement by any measure.
As of this writing, Facebook is ranked as the 5th most popular site on the web, just ahead of Myspace at #6. This puts Facebook ahead of Internet heavyweights such as Wikipedia (#8) and MSN.com (#7).
Can facebook move up farther in the rankings to #4? Not anytime soon. The site currently in that position is live.com, which has more than twice the number of visitors. But who knows, at this growth rate, facebook may not be done scaling the Alexa rankings.
45 comments:
You know, each time I read about facebook increasing the number of visitors/members, I just don't get it.
I'm a member of both MySpace and Facebook and I can't even get a handle on how these sites work. And I've been building websites for over 10 years now :).
I'm sure the demographic of these sites is teens to early 20s or something.
Thats its truee, for example here at my country DominicaRepublic, everybody use hi5, but since 9 months ago people prefer facebook.
In my country, most people use friendster instead of facebook. The people here always complain that facebook is too complex compared to friendster.
I think myspace will soon lose its share in social networking sites unless myspace is able to focus on certain countries. The best example is friendster in my country. Despite losing competitiveness in the wordwide market, friendster has faster growth and more users in my country compared to others.
I wonder how much of Facebook's growth is from the corporate web world.
Every SEO professional recommends creating a billboard link on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, Myspace.
Yes, it's a personal bias but Facebook seems just a bit more business-like ( I won't say corporate) than MySpace where Paris Hilton routinely reveals her new BFF.
Both are good outlets, Facebook just seems a notch above the gliteratti on Myspace.
editor@webwordslinger.com
MySpace is actually a much better site, has more features than facebook, it's true that many people are visiting it right now since the fame is out newschannels more than ever. Even though I think it's good visiting Alexa to check out some of the traffic, I still believe many websites try some tricks so they can score higher. Something I would do. Like embedding pages inside another page so when people visit the website it would count as double. And if they embed another one it would count triple and so on. So say, if you're really half way of myspace.com doing that trick will pass them. I don't trust many things on the internet these days. Is like you have people with a lot time in there hands, going to different proxies to vote on a poll making it look like many people are voting. I tell you if I ever develop a website and turns out to be a big hit, I would be probably have it on the top 100 of Alexa.com.
Hi5 is full of bugs. its messy and slow. Very bad platform.
MySpace allows too many users to add html and pages become messy and cluttered and slow. and very often the website is down for maintenance.
Facebook is clean and fast.
-thats why its rapidly increasing!
(most people that use hi5 and then try facebook, often start prefering facebook)
I agree with "editor's" comment. Facebook is much more inclined towards the business end. MySpace haven't really got their act together in this area. In fact they threaten to fine you if you promote to other users (read the small print in their TOS). I reckon it's gonna cost them dearly long term.
Nancy Lawson: www.weightlosshealthyeatingplan.com/
i saw it coming..Good for facebook. i just hoe they will keep up the pace.
Myspace I associate with spam, at least for a number of years. Its business forums are non-existant, and many others are the same.
Facebook is harder to sign up (they did not believe my name was "real"), and to get signed up I went through their tech support team.
But, everyone I know enjoys facebook as a "cleaner" less "spammy" environment.
-Salem H. Designmyidea.com
in Asia, facebook is just on the rise and not many people know about it. In my opinion, FaceBook is alot complicated compared with MySpace...congrats to FaceBook anyways
It would be great if your marketing guys would make the Max Range on the chart for the life of the site.
Kind of like it used to be before.
Wow this is a momentous date. It has been sometime coming. I'm a big fan of each site. Professionally as a designer I love the custom design possibilities that myspace has but personally to communicate with friends i use facebook.
MySpace is loosing a great deal of traffic to other sites. Google has introduce some new social technology that is compatible with facebook and not myspace so thats going to help facebook widen the gap.
Great! good for facebook! myspace is the best though!
I really don't see too much of a difference between myspace and facebook.
This is very interesting. With Facebook's plugins and cleaner look compared to MySpace I can see why this has happened! I had to delete my MySpace account to stop wasting time rejecting random strangers that were half naked.
Glad to see FaceBook coming up the ranks.
Nathan Lands
http://www.hiyaya.com
Software Development - Web 2.0 Application Design
I am just wondering if SSN system could be replaced with Facebook ids 5 years from now :-)
welcome to the unofficial social security network !!
The important event i look forward to not too far away in the future is integration of all the social networking sites seamlessly and a single sign-on..what say !
Myspace's main USP has been their bulletin which attracted the Merkeeters and also the Kids who wanted to get famous by showing of their 100k friends.
But now everyone is getting tired of it and also stories of how some kid spent 3 year accumulating 60k friends suddenly had his Myspace account deleted etc etc.
I really know that Facebook is run by intelligent, web savvy and organized people - and Myspace, well - Tom needs help from Dick and Hary now!!
I think the idea of social networking is a dead end anyway, online at least it can not replace true human interaction, and once the virtual connection is achieved we have to move to real world to meet people who we met online, otherwise there is no point ..
URLSmash.com
http://urlsmash.com
Hahaha, facebook owns myspace any time any day! I JUST signed up for a myspace account to see what myspace is really like... and I shuddered. Seriously, it's jammed full of junk and adverts where facebook is not... facebook = love.
Facebook is much better than myspace. I advertised http://www.jewelrymeetsfashion.com in both arenas and got much more traffic from facebook than myspace.
Facebook is less complex as compared to myspace.....i like both by the way...its great to have your social network expand beyond geo boundaries.
Regards,
Zee
http://earnpakistani.blogspot.com
I prefer Facebook over them all simply because I can actually find the name of a person I am looking for. For years I have tried reuniting with some of my old friends from a state I used to live in and when I searched on search engines, one of the girls was named something like cutiebabieXoXo. It's absolutely ridiculous how hard it was for me to find anyone on MySpace...
Personally I think Facebook will slowly level off on the nubers front like MySpace has. Whats next?
I believe there should be a better use for social networking sites other than nosing at your mates drunk photos! I stumbled across this website http://creative-geni.us Here creative people can network amongst each other and actually be pro-active on projects!
Slowly gone are the days of posting pics your sun burnt ex on MySpace to get back at her. Social networking will prove to be helpfull at some point!
By no means a scientific survey, but based on my personal experience I think the person who mentioned more business people using Facebook appears completely valid to me.
The majority of my friends on Myspace are my younger friends that I party with, hang out with, and just have more of a social relationship with. Conversely, most of my Facebook friends tend to be other friends & acquaintances my age or older that are in my industry (I work in videogame development). Most of these people have signed up for Facebook in the past 4-6 months, don't have Myspace, and pretty much just did it because they read it was the big thing to do and that it was important for them to have one in order to further their careers. Also, all of my Myspace friends also have Facebook's (although they use it 100 times less), but my industry friends that have Facebook typically don't have a Myspace because they feel it's too childish.
I agree with most...Facebook has a more professional feel to it. I always feel uncomfortable on MySpace. I never know what type of racy ads might show up. I logged on both for networking purposes and have made contacts on both sites. Using this and other methods, improved traffic on:
http://www.mynah.com
its really great to learn that.. coz i really feel uncomfortable on Myspace like Jason, and Facebook seems like website which i own... so i hope it will keep its position...
http://mehmetcihangir.blogspot.com
I have found myspace to be very easy to customize and make friends. Facebook is great but I still have a lot to learn. I like that you can network all over and create such a large community. You are also dealing with a different demographic.
I'm sure the demographic of these sites is teens to early 20s or something.
I guess Facebook is good and Soon there would some other social website which would take over. so not a surprise any more
I think what got Facebook move faster in gaining users are mainly features and ease of use. It is actually simple, although it could be more concise, and a lot of people just love that.
Social network sites is a good traffic generator anyway. I once transform a mailing list into a social network site with the help of Sandy Rowley from Megastar Media and users love them. I think we'll see more battles between those two in the future :)
Facebook is for people with a better education and the users generally tend to actually have a life.
Myspace is for the lower end of the scale, and is usually for people who want attention because they are lacking fibre in other aspects of their lives.
This is a great article. I totally agree with what your saying. Facebook is up and coming of course now that facebook rolled out the redesign things could change. lots of users are disgruntled. social network design
I agree with shiv, who really has time to share with the world that "I'm at home now" or "I'm going to bed". www.sheangels.com
yeah we know how alexa work its amazing :)thanks for alexa
http://network-wifi.blogspot.com
Facebook has been recently really popular in our country too ... personally i like the layout of facebook better then myspace f
Facebook is for people with a better education and the users generally tend to actually have a life.
Myspace is for the lower end of the scale, and is usually for people who want attention because they are lacking fibre in other aspects of their lives. My space is in www.eurotiendaonline.es
The problem with Myspace is you need to get your head around building a page. I have to say though facebook can be so annoying, all that poking and throwing of sheep etc, really a big timewaste.
shane
With 2 years experience working in advertising department with PapaShoe, Facebook not only has a good platform but also is spam-free, fast and efficient. However, its new version has given me a hard time to manage my conversations and other applications. MySpace is easier to sign up, which only fuels spamming of its users. It also allows too many users to add html and pages, which soon become messy, cluttered and slow. Myspace is very often the website is down for maintenance.
http://www.papashoe.com
It was a long time coming. MySpace really needs to make some significant changes if it hopes to stay competitive in the market!
MySpace Designs
The wallpapers of ads, annoying auto-starting music and anonymous spammers on MySpace killed it for me. And I was on MySpace a long time before I converted to Facebook. The design options of MySpace are nice... if you're in a vacuum. But most custom-designed MySpace pages are eyesores and it gets exhausting going from one person's page to the next when they all look and are arranged differently. Consistency makes for faster browsing.
John
Another point not addresses; search around and you'll see. MySpace has a problem with loading so many pages. This makes them look as if they're much more popular than Facebook. I'm sure FB has been ahead of MySpace for quite some time now; it's just MySpace's poor development that put them above Facebook. This is a major problem for advertisers, who think they're getting a low rate, yet getting fewer actual impressions.
It was a long time coming. MySpace really needs to make some significant changes if it hopes to stay competitive in the market!
http://krwetatnt.net/vb/
Myspace is superior to Facebook. I advertised http://www.lmpenterprises.co.uk in both arenas and got much more traffic from Myspace than facebook.
Believe it or not...there will be another social website coming out and ready to beat facebook and myspace. Kindly check this site out, just came out in March 09 and the traffic keep increasing and ready to beat craigslist and olx.com in future.
http://www.eggosbase.com
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