The Facebook Death Star Moves Across The Universe –
In June, Facebook became the fourth largest site in the world after only Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo sites. But how did it get there? Click through the slideshow above to see the advance of the Facebook Death Star across key markets (the U.S., UK, France, Italy, and Spain).
Each slide shows a snapshot in time, starting with January, 2008 to June or July, 2009. The charts are based on comScore data and show the relative reach (X-axis), usage (y-axis), and time spent (size of bubble) on various popular sites in each market over time. Facebook is represented by the blue sphere. You can see how it moves across the Web universe passing sites such as AOL, MySpace, and YouTube (overseas) and getting a larger and larger as it progresses.
In the U.S., Facebook’s growth continues at a remarkable pace, but the changes in the UK and France are the most dramatic. In the UK, in particular, note how a year ago it was it was neck and neck with Bebo, but by June Bebo had shrunk and lost reach, while Facebook had gone on to pass Yahoo, YouTube, and eBay as well.
Love, love, love the headline
Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
+1
+1
But I was going to Tashi Station to pick up some power converters. I get back and The Facebook Death Star is taking over the world… Womprats.
I agree. The headline is so great!
.docstok NOT working! FAIL!
If it was the church of Googlentology that had made a deal with facebook in the past, would you still call it the deathstar?
What does the size of the bubble mean? Facebook is lower on both axes from Google and Yahoo!, but in some slides its bubble is larger than Google’s.
time on site
Hi Erick,
how is that measured?
I mean: I use a lot of tabs, and one of them is Facebook. Does FB (or comScore) think I spend 24/7 on FB?
Also, when my active tab is on FB but my foreground application is Word, does that time count?
thanks,
Good questions. ‘Time spent’ is a notoriously unreliable measure, only really useful in terms of advertising.
Time spent on a site could be spent engaging with the site positively, or it could be spent desperately trying to find what you need in a badly organised site. In terms of engagement or enjoyment, ‘time spent’ tells us nothing, but for advertisers ‘time spent’ is useful because the more time a person spends on a page, the more likely they are to see the ads.
Visiting each of the analysed sites, it becomes quite obvious that the popularity of a website has very little to do with its overall quality. Indeed I’d go so far as to say that AOL, MySpace, MSN, and Yahoo, are simply bad sites from any technical perspective. Their appeal is a mystery to me, but I guess it’s like flies to a bright light, or like flies to…
Using FB as an example, FB has become more popular, and simultaneously has become a worse site, to such an extent that they’ve had to relaunch their original interface under a new name to keep original users happy. The reduction of quality hasn’t reduced their growth though, in fact the worse the site gets, the more numbers they generate.
It’s possible to use a java script to tell whether your tab is active or not. It can figure out if you are using another tab or working in Word, so FB should know for sure.
Guess Twitter didn’t even make the cut …
Only a matter of time before twitter takes over the world.
only a matter of time before everyone forgets twitter
Only a matter of time before people forget twitter took over the world.
Win.
More people use apps for Twitter than Facebook. Less interaction time.
You can count the number of tweets and estimate the time it took someone to think up a tweet. Total time on Twitter = number of tweets * (time thinking up a tweet + time trying to make it fit in 140 characters)
Reminds me more of the planetary rotation of the Mily Way – Facebook may be becoming the biggest planet Saturn, but Earth (google blue) is still the gem of the solar system
isn’t Jupiter the largest?
No, it’s Pluto without a doubt!!!
our theory of relativity makes more sense.
http://www.crun...y/mylocator-com
Oops, sorry, found twitter at the bottom in July 08. Not much to talk about there.
Note: size of bubble represents total time spent per month. The larger a bubble is, the more time is spent on the website, and vice versa
We’ll get it right in a minute – should have said Jul 09 – and bubble size is “total time per month” says so at top of chart.
The Bebo shrinkage in the UK seems to correspond to the school summer holidays. I would assume some kids access to the net is more limited and obviously many are away from home.
Nice theory, but what explains Facebook’s huge growth in time spent and penetration at that same time of year? It’s very clear that Facebook gained share at the expense of Bebo. Time of year is irrelevant.
what about germany? No keymarket at all?
Isn’t the main markets (US, UK, France, Italy, Spain) missing out on some of the major ones. I’m thinking Germany (pop 82mill) and Japan (pop 127mill) which are respectively over twice and thrice the size of Spain, and both have about $5k extra per person PPP than it.
Ouch. Slides 8 and 9 must just KILL Bebo. Where did it all go wrong? Lack of innovation? Lack of understanding of their users?
More star wars references please!
(1) You sure about the live.com in spain? It went from not on the charts to #2 and huge in one year? How did that happen?!!?
(2) Interesting to see the failing of the various rebel alliances: bebo, hi5…bebo in UK was really very strong in 2008. In fact, the 2008 bubble for Bebo looks suspiciously like Alderaan.
As usage was growing so was facebook’s income, we did cover this some time on our blog.
http://www.nichea.info
Germany is much more important than Italy and Spain. Germany is the biggest economy in Europe.
Germany lost the war, as did Japan.
“All these networks are yours except Facebook. Attempt no friendings there.”
Although it’s a bit late, right? … right? *static hiss*
It is amazing to see how large this website and company has gotten in such a short period of time.
Creative post. It is amazing how huge Facebook has become all around the world. No wonder businesses have started using social networking sites for marketing and advertisements.
For extra nerd-points, try whistling the Imperial theme from Star Wars while flipping through the slides.
I can just hear the Imperial March playing as I click through…
http://www.yout...h?v=r_WERPN8KO8
All your base are belong to us!
I am surprised you didn’t mention ebay crashing in the U.S. on the same graph.
That’s no moon…….
I see the nerds are rejoicing thanks to the title.
if you would click on the next button rapidly till the 7th page, the slides would become a cartoon of moving deathstar (I did it with the main theme of Star Wars in my headphones… dada-da-daaa-daaa)
Interesting graphics and informative post. Now only if there was prediction on what’s going to happen in next six months – that would be useful!
is there any similar data for India
Hehe they left out Germany and others because Facebook does not perform very good there. StudiVZ is an alternative service which most germans prefer over Facebook, so this articel silently leaves them out. This is No good.
facebook on the move
Let’s all remember that there was NO one Big Bang. There have been, are being and will be a number of Big Bangs in this infinite Universe of ours. However, what we are starting to see are the consequences of OUR Big Bang with the new modern telescopes. Will humankind ever be able to see the OTHER Big Bangs which have taken place, are taking place and will take place? A good question for many scientists.