Mothers and Sweethearts

Sometimes, Internet traffic data makes one scratch his or her head. In reviewing the traffic over the last six months to flower and gift sites, I've noticed something I can't quite wrap my brain around.

When comparing the traffic of three major online florists and one gift site, Tiffany.com, I notice something interesting: moms don't make out as well as sweethearts.

For all of these sites, there are the predictable spikes around holidays. Christmas is a natural, but it's not nearly as popular as Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. What perplexes me is that the spikes are higher on Valentine's day than on Mother's Day.

While I'm perpetually single and may be biased, I feel like I know more people with mothers than with sweethearts. Furthermore, I know more people who would be able to purchase flowers in person and carry them to their sweethearts; more of the people I know live fairly close to their romantic interests than their moms. Maybe I'm just a mama's boy.

Do moms get other stuff than flowers? From that angle, it makes sense--everyone knows you have to give your sweetheart flowers, chocolate, or jewelry on Valentine's Day. Maybe moms are also getting pots and pans, power tools, computers, and flat screen televisions. Last year, I gave my mom a cell phone--but we also gave her flowers.

Am I missing something? Please feel free to weigh in with a comment.

Facebook Overtakes Myspace

Mark it on your calendar - April 19, 2008 - the date that Facebook overtook Myspace as the #1 social networking site on the Web.


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.

Good Golly, it's MOLI

Is the graph to the left an indication of another social networking site crossing a threshold? The newish site MOLI just hit my radar as I was watching some graphs of recent Mover sites that aren't overnight spikes followed by a return to their former levels. This one has been on a steady climb for at least a few weeks.

I've seen enough of these things come along over time to recognize the initial pattern: social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace seem to toil in relative obscurity for a while, expanding from the people who work there and their families and friends to a larger audience with time. Then, something happens: a critical mass of those who are in the know sign on and they grow quickly. I wonder if that's what is happening with MOLI.

I am not big on social networking sites personally. I think that between my accounts on Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, I have just enough connections to seem like a hermit. When YouTube came out with the tag-line "Broadcast yourself," I thought, "Well, whatever for?" I have a professional interest in these sites, but tend to prefer not to publish the quotidian, my quotidian. When the stories started coming out a couple of years ago about people leaving college and missing out on job opportunities because they were a bit to free with their personal details on such sites, I was comforted by my obscurity.

It seems MOLI might be a step in the right direction for those addicted to sharing personal details. Because the site allows you to manage multiple profiles using one account, the folks from the church social never have to know about the party animals you know--who in turn won't have any idea how boring your job is. However, because I can just see me posting my award-winning tuna casserole recipe to my social profile in a moment of reply-to-all oblivion, I think I just might stick with my journals.

Does MOLI have a niche?