We’ve dug a little deeper into today’s latest set of Comscore data. As we noted earlier today, Facebook continues to show tremendous growth, and may well catch up to MySpace in terms of U.S. unique visitors by 2010. But another interesting trend, and one that is important to advertisers, are the increases in engagement both networks have seen over the past year – a metric that MySpace has been building a firm lead in.
Since last month, MySpace saw the number of minutes each U.S. user spent on the site per month grow 15%, to 266.3 minutes – a new record for the social network, and a 31% increase since last January. Facebook has also shown an increase over the last month, growing 4% since December to an average of 176.6 minutes per user, but has only grown around 3% year over year. And MySpace is still besting Facebook by around 90 minutes per user.
As the graph below shows, MySpace has had the advantage here for quite a while, but the recent spike is likely due to the site’s launch of MySpace Music, as well as growth in MySpace Video. In the struggling economy people are spending more time at home, which tends to benefit these media-heavy sites.
Page views are also up for both social networks, at least in the short term. MySpace’s page views are up nearly 10% since December to 579 pages per user per month, while Facebook has grown around 3% in the same time period to 337. Figures for both sites are smaller than they were a year ago, likely because they have both been introducing UI improvements like AJAX that don’t force users to refresh their page for every action. Such improvements generally help with lengthening visits as users are less likely to get frustrated, but they also lead to deflated page views.
Could it be that Myspace has something called Myspace Music? Yes, people typically keep the browser window open when listening to a song in a flash player.
Yes but during this time Myspace is able to show ads.
Myspace is beating Facebook where it counts. In making money.
http://smartbab...ging-world.html
Anjali Sen
But both MySpace AND Facebook have less accounts and less reach than QQ.com, the leading Chinese Social Network.
Maybe try throwing some QQ.com data into a comparative post about Social Networking???
Less pageviews by visitor is better for him. He finds more value in the service. He can keep browsing all profiles in myspace, orkut etc for no use but timepass, which is disabled in facebook.
Facebook gives more real life returns than keep browsing the virtual world of profiles.
About QQ, it’s true QQ is the largest chinese social network. As time goes by, Chinese internet users will surpass the US and European users. Their internet growth was around 40% last year.
So if you want to reach the chinese market, approach them differently. Translating your website only won’t help much
i doubt anybody at FB is hurting for a paycheck. the bottomline is who can hold the user. users are maturing and leaving MS for a less ad spammy site. MS is now seen as a romper room playground and FB is a little more serious and cleaner layout. users will leave FB when they realize there are better social channels that are relevent to who they are and support there causes. in future social sites will have to give back to the user for there presence. users are getting smarter everyday. FB reminds me of a fancy twitter. nothing really special besides being free and having a little cleaner layout than MS.
RulesLocator.com – obey yourself
Wrong wrong worng.
No the bottom line is not who can hold the user. The bottom line is who can make money.
Holding the user, getting eyballs, capturing beachhead. These are all idiotic metaphors. A metaphor is not a business strategy … it is a literary device that belongs in a high school English class.
http://smartbab...ategy-save.html
Anjali Sen
Yes i agree to u ………
but do u think its fair to compair facebookand Myspace
From Comscore it doesn’t look like it’s MySpace Music…18M uniques, 11.2 minutes/visitor/month
Exactly as Jeff Kameron said…
Jeff must be right, I can’t believe people still spend anytime on MySpace.
i thought this was already established that folks spend more time on myspace.
also internet usage in general is on the rise, as computers and the internet are becoming more and more affordable for nonusers.
I think Facebook has become extremely more popular than Myspace, regardless of these numbers but the question is: How long to you think either of these companies will last? Anyone think that another social network will come and overtake them both?
http://twitter.com/cliffdailey
Yes. the social network that is built on telepathy.
If I visit MySpace I might spend like 30 or more minutes just watching music videos or listening to music. Without music or videos MySpace is toast.
yup: concur with Jeff: you need to stay on the page to hear the music.
maybe they can measure activity (page to page clicks); it will be likely that fb will top that one. (the fb games addicts are click-crazy)
MySpace is always the best place for entertainment. Facebook is boring and it’s pretty much like LinkedIn. I am a loyal MySpace user purely because of media and entertainment and I’ve recently started using Cruxle (http://www.cruxle.com) that directly takes my MySpace profile, analyzes my favorites and recommends me more entertainment. I’ve found the results to be extremely brilliant. If you are a MySpace user, you should definitely give it a try. It’s worth it. MySpace rocks and MySpace + Cruxle super-rocks!
or perhaps facebook is simply more efficient?
Has anyone used myspace lately? it’s still an eye sore.
I am sorry but I must disagree with everyone that thinks that Myspace is counted out.
Teens are driven to Myspace like crazy, because of the music and videos and the indie bands.
Teens also go for Facebook but at a different approach, teens go to facebook to quick chat with friends.
Myspace is an entertainment powerhouse for teens, and as such Myspace will still ALWAYS be a huge social network.
Plus Myspace is profitable and facebook is still twiddling there thumbs… there doing something right.
37 year olds too.
Facebook has a lot more dynamic data that doesn’t post back. For example: more newsfeed items, wall post, pictures, etc, switching through info to wall. etc.
For MySpace, you have to click through seperate pages to get to things.
Facebook is definetly more efficient. We can’t compare pageviews between Myspace and Facebook.
I would also imagine the stream of embedded videos on user profile pages would add to that.
But I think Jim X is onto somethings as well.
I think user engagement is going to be the key for social networks monetizing their service. Good news for MySpace despite it’s flat growth and offcourse for Facebook.
You can also argue that Facebook’s steady growth will suffer the minute they start throwing up more ads to make money. With Myspace, you deal with the ads because the entertainment is there. If Facebook starts getting ad-heavy, people will move to the next overhyped social communication website.
Page views are definitely becoming an outdated metric. Engagement is where it’s at. To anonymous on top, sites need ads to thrive and if they’re smart, which I’d like to think they are, they’ll definitely make it user friendly or lose page views and engagement. These are certainly game theory principles which should maximize benefits for both parties (social networking sites and their users).
twitter.com/glenn_gutierrez
Well for some us, page views still pay the bills and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
There is no doubt the momentum has been in favor of fb for a while. But you can’t help but be stunned that myspace has been able to milk every cent out of its network. These are both profit driven companies in the end, and myspace is doing more with less in my opinion. However, fb is more efficient and has a lot better reputation. All the FBI news is regarding myspace and fb even looks* squeaky clean design wise. As security for kids and adults a like continues to increase as a prerogative and sites like http://www.justaskgemalto.com get more popular, I think this will all work in fb’s favor.
Well no doubt facebook is more advanced than myspace but what make myspace looks better in terms of US visitors probably because of the music/videos. They are more focused on this thing plus they are more simple. Some people prefer simplicity rather than crap games in FB.
MySpace is definitely the place for entertainment and music. Why are all these nerds so hooked on Facebook. All you need is twitter for social and Myspace for entertainment. The only thing Facebook is good for is high school reunion party planners.
yeah , i agee. though there are many rumours across the internet that myspace is loosing market share, i still believe that teens are driving towards myspace like crazy
Facebook scores over MySpace anyday both in terms of features and maneurability.
come and see
What? MySpace’s load times have gotten worse?! I kid, I kid. No, but really, their site load is painful.
I wonder if myspace will enter the Online games arena since lots of people used Facebook for scrabble but now facebook will need to implement videos and music to keep up.
Since MySpace delivers such a poor user experience compared to Facebook, I have to think that people also spend a lot more time simply looking for things on MySpace. Finding friends on MySpace is a frustrating, time-consuming chore, which is not the case on Facebook.
Sounds like MySpace is cashing on the fact that users need to click through 10 pages to accomplish the same task that Facebook users get done in 3 clicks. Give it time – Facebook will catch up and overcome MySpace when they get the music aspect figured out.
It appears that the two charts are identical (both are Average Pages per Visitor). I expected the first chart to be Average Minutes per Visitor and the second to be Average Pages per Visitor.
I left MS for FB because of the increasing amounts of time it would take for the ad/media/user content to load. Perhaps this is why people are spending more on MS as well as listening to music or watching videos.
FB is way better than MS because it’s clean, easy to use, and really just represents a better way than email to stay in touch with people, and all aspects of their lives. As time passes, there will be others that surpass Facebook – as users drive more of what they want in a social network, the hot ones today will become the legacies of tomorrow, and may have a hard time adjusting. I’m not loyal to FB, I just like their format the best out of all the current choices. As soon as better choices emerge, I’ll start using them.
It’s all about the AJAX
It’s not hard to spend more time on MySpace when you have extended load times, tons of ads loading, having to click through everything to get close to what you’re looking for, and having to hit the back button three times to retreat one step in the browsing experience.
To this frustrated user, the lower time spent on Facebook is evidence of a massively superior user interface.
Let’s not discount user behavior. How long with the kids continue to use a social network that their parents are also on? The days are numbered for Facebook and youth. Look at the average age across both sites. NOT because of technology, but because of social behavior.
Few teenagers want either (a) their networks to see their parents updates, or (b) their parents seeing their network updates.
I expect that we will see more traffic spreading across “second tier” social networks in the coming quarters.
As the principal in a social media marketing firm, I can tell you that despite those numbers, most companies (unless they want to reach teens or are in the music/art space) are looking to Facebook before MySpace. Facebook is way cleaner, more functional, and more efficient, and its Pages are a way better option for company presence than MySpace profiles.
its depend on your account. in my opinion i like both
Face book and my space website.
i am dis agree. because it is the wrong question to comparison to each other.
http://www.dirt...advertising.com
info@dirtystreetadvertising.com
0800 4118 752
yeah thats true that Myspace is beating facebook in money but Myspace cant beat facebook in people………..
I like both
Face book and my space website.
because it is the wrong to compare Myspace wid the facebook.
According to me Myspace is the best and its friendly user………….
I came to know when i used it………….
I think the recent shift may be because Facebook’s user growth is heavily into demographics that aren’t using the service as regularly. Women over 35 are the fasting growing demographic on Facebook and my guess is they use the service less than the earlier adopters.
Hay thanks I allmost forgot to wined my watch today
facebook hits [GenX the most recent group] the first few weeks, as you catch up with all your old friends, then gets old quickly. Without 3rd party apps FB would be more boring than Friendster. At least Friendster has blogs and content to actually read. FB’s strength (keeping “real” networks) is also its weakness – which is why I still prefer MySpace – more interesting NEW people. Only so many baby /house in the burbs pics of old high school pals I can care about.
With Hulu and YouTube and iTunes and Pandora, aside from discovering indie / unsigned bands, what is the appeal of MySpace?
Rupert has said that Myspace was his best investment and I think it is more than a social network. The entertainment connection to video and music makes it very strong compared to facebook which relies on 3rd party games to make the site “fun”