Shakeout in Social Media
October 14th, 2009Facebook is kicking sand in MySpace face. And walking away with the prizes, too. Twitter has leveled off heading into fall — a lull? or a ceiling?
Hitwise recent research shows some huge changes in the social media world over the past year. Facebook’s surge seems to be continuing as it climbs toward 400 million subscribers worldwide. First, here’s the numbers as reported in Online Media Daily:
The fall of MySpace must make Rupert Murdock’s teeth ache. It still has lots of loyalty (a class-leading time on site nearly 30 minutes), but the numbers are hard to look at from an ad network’s point of view. Nothing here about the demographics on MySpace, but my guess is it stills skews very young which makes it a good target for lots of products aiming at the college kids and younger.
Facebook, though, is catching on with the older crowd. Fastest growing group on FB is 55+ — all those jokes about Grandma spying on her grandkids by getting on Facebook have been overtaken by the reality that Grandma’s circle of friends is getting into the game as well. And Facebook is still about personal networks of friends keeping up with each other efficiently and in a convenient way online.
