In spite of all the media coverage of Facebook, MySpace (NWS-A) continues to dominate the social network traffic space, accounting for over 76 percent of the traffic market in the United States, according to Hitwise, and cited by Marketing Charts.
For Facebook, they received 12.57 percent of social network traffic, with Bebo following way behind in third place with 1.24 percent. BlackPlanet was able to garner 0.87 of the traffic to bring up the fourth place spot. The measured list included 53 of the leading social-networking websites, with the remaining 49 websites accounting for 8.95 percent of all U.S. visits for 2007.
The month of December 2007 showed Facebook gaining a little over the yearly average, climbing to 16.03 percent of U.S. visits, while MySpace accounted for 72.32 percent. Bebo dropped to 1.09 percent of visits in December.
In another important statistic, MySpace led the way in return visitors, with 95 percent of their traffic coming from them. Facebook was just behind that with 93 percent, and BlackPlanet at 89 percent. The return visitors were measured from the prior month.
The fastest growing social network sites in December, according to market share, were MyYearbook, which grew by 407 percent; Facebook, which increased by 51 percent; and Club Penquin, gaining 48 percent.
Bebo led the way for those spending the most average time on the major social networks, with visitors staying around for an average of 30 minutes and 24 seconds.
For all of 2007, the overall traffic to social-networking websites grew by 40 percent over 2006.
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