Date: Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Myspace loser in Facebook phenomenon

Recent reports have indicated that MySpace is set to lose its position at the top of the social networking hierarchy as it is trumped by Facebook. Market researchers Nielsen/Netratings have released findings that suggest that if current growth rates continue, Facebook will overtake MySpace in membership numbers by September. They present figures showing a fall in membership of the site in the UK from 6.8 million in April of this year, to 6.5 million in May, and in the US from 57 million 56.6 million in the same time period. This is in contrast to Facebook who’s numbers have only increased, by a reported 523% in the last six months. Experts believe that Facebook’s surge in popularity is due to its ease of use and perceived more ‘grown-up’ style.

Other findings from Nielsen’s report indicates that a further reason for MySpace’s decline in membership numbers is people’s ‘promiscuity’ in their use of social networking websites, with a reported 444 000 people in the UK belonging to Facebook, MySpace and Bebo in May of this year. Although at the moment MySpace is still managing to hold on to its title, experts believe that if Facebook’s spectacular growth continues at the rate it has been doing, it will easily overtake MySpace by September. In recognition of this fact MySpace’s owners have recently introduced a new feature to the site called MySpaceTV, which is said to be an attempt to rival YouTube. However this does not seem to be such a big advantage to the site, as Facebook has released a ‘platform’ which allows independently created applications to work within the site, opening Facebook up to potentially hundreds of new features. The race is on to the top, and unless MySpace’s fortunes change drastically in the next few months, it seems that Facebook overtaking it is inevitable.



Source: Times Online