MySpace, Facebook, Bebo Increase in Popularity

According to a press release from comScore, in which they presented results of a study on social networking websites, several of the most popular sites have experienced extreme growth over the past year.

The biggest and most well known website, MySpace, brought in more than 114 million visitors older than 15 from around the world in June 2007, which is a 72 percent increase from June 2006.

Facebook experienced a stunning growth of 270 percent, going from 14 million visitors in June 2006 to 52.2 million visitors in June 2007. Also showing impressive growth were Bebo.com, which expanded by 172 percent from 6.7 million visitors to 18.2 million, and Tagged.com which increased its visitors by 774 percent from 1.5 million to 13.2 million visitors.

Hi5, Friendster, and Orkut also saw increases of 36, 65, and 78 percent, respectively. All three hovered around Facebook's 14 million number last June, but have been nearly doubled this June.

Bob Ivins, executive vice president of international markets comments: "During the past year, social networking has really taken off globally. Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world are visiting social networking sites each month and many are doing so on a daily basis. It would appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global Internet."

Results of the daily visitors study showed similar progression. MySpace still holds the most visitors at 28.8 million per day, a 72 percent increase from last year's 16.8 million. Facebook, however, is catching up. The site saw an average 14.9 million visitors per day this year, a nearly 300 percent jump from last year's 3.7 million.

Bebo and Tagged again saw significant increases, from 1.2 million to 4.8 million (307 percent) and from 202,000 to 983,000 (286 percent), respectively. Hi5, Friendster, and Orkut increased by 65, 96, and 75 percent.

The press release points out that specific networks' popularity is different in different regions. For example, MySpace and Facebook get roughly two-thirds of their users from North America, but are continuing to expand globally. Bebo.com receives the majority of its users from Europe, 62 percent to be exact. Orkut barely receives any of its visitors from North America, with 49 percent coming from Latin America and 43 percent from the Asia-Pacific region. Friendster.com gets 89 percent of its visitors from the Asia-Pacific region as well. Hi5 and Tagged are relatively balanced, getting 8 percent of their visitors from each of the five major regions in the world.

Sources:

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