Will Facebook 's Web Traffic Overtake Daunt Myspace?

Hmm, I bet Myspace didn't see this one coming. The leading social networking site has been striving to curb the threat of Facebook within the past months, but web traffic statistics now show Facebook has finally overtaken Myspace in daily page views and reach.

The Alexa’s new traffic statistics has made Facebook the sixth most viewed website worldwide, the spot previously held by Myspace. View the stats below:

The latest three months graph shows no substantial increase in Myspace’s traffic, while Facebook’s traffic consistently increased over the same period.

Recently, thousands of American Facebook members signed a petition to stop the new advertising program called Facebook Beacon, a behavioral tracking system which enables Facebook user's customers to share the actions they take on user's website with their Facebook friends. Some of the protest groups, however, paid Facebook to advertise on the site and therefore bring additional website traffic.

Though web traffic is one of the most important factors to determine the leading social networking site, other factors such as revenue conversion, membership size and level of active members play very important role. Currently with more than 50 million users, Facebook is still far behind Myspace with over 200 million users.

Whether Facebook will continue to gain its traffic momentum over Myspace is not the question. The real question is: Will Facebook eventually overtake Myspace's membership size?

Fashionistas is Now on Beta!

I recently wrote a blog about the new online fashion social networking place at fashionistas.ca The site (currently on beta version) offers so much for fashion enthusiasts with it's reddish pink and black web interface. What else do you expect from a fashion site? Actually, I've been following the site since it's pre-launch and haven't stopped visiting since then. Don't ask me why:)

Fashionistas will be hosting big fashion events come January 2008 in Milan, Paris and Amsterdam. The social networking web portal is also offering a fashion journalist job to the right person. You can also grab fashion news which features celebrities and music stars on Fashionistas.

Social Networks: Influenced by Race and Education?

With so many social networks today, it seems that their use and membership depends largely on one's social class, education, race or ethnic background.

In a startling finding, researchers from Northwestern University challenged the concept that everyone is 'equal' online. In a recent press release, they announced the details of their study that determined that ones social class, race, and the level of parents education are the strongest predictors of which social networking site someone will use. They also determined that the three most popular sites were MySpace.com, Facebook.com, and Xanga.com.

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Their concern is based on the fact that social networking sites could be creating a two-class system, those with more social connections and those students who do not have social connections.

According to the study, white college students tend to use Facebook. Hispanic college students tend to use MySpace, and Asian students (including Asian Americans) use Myspace less than any other social networking site. No preference was found for African American college students.

Meet and Beat at Doof.com

Doof.com, is a new online social networking site for gamers that offers a range of stock-standard games - including arcade, cards, puzzles etc. 'Doofers' - I'd like to call the site's users - "meet and beat" at the online playground while social networking with their friends, etc

Doof features the typical gaming-fare of leagues, tournaments and competitions, though certain parts of the site (for example, "the elite games" or "specific virtual goods"), are locked down and require an online subscription to have access.

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Like other social networking site such as Facebook and MySpace, Doof users have the ability to create profiles, friend lists, and update their status. It is actually called "social gaming".

According to Social Networking Watch, Doof is privately-owned by the London based Money Gaming Corporation Ltd, which is headed up by CEO Liad Shababo. Shababo started his online gaming site career as an affiliate for online gaming companies in 2002, eventually starting up MoneyGaming.com in 2005. MoneyGaming.com allowed people to play games of skill against each other for real money.

Doof plans to crease the user base, enhance the site functionality, predominantly around the interactive community features, whilst at the same time, growing the games, competitive options, player customisation features and integration options with existing social networking sites and platforms.

Top 10 U.S. Social Network and Blog Site Rankings for October

It's not surprising that MySpace tops the rankings of top U.S. social-networking sites again, with more than 58.8 million unique visitors in October, according to the custom lists of top U.S. social-networking sites and blogs compiled by Nielsen.

Ranked second among social-networking sites, Facebook increased the number of visitors to 19.5 million, up 125 percent compared to October 2006 record. MySpace visitors increased 19 percent year over year. (See table of top 10 social-networking sites for October)

Among blog sites, Google’s Blogger remains top blog site in rankings with 34.1 million visitors. Blogger increased its visitors with a significant 58 percent from the year-earlier period, reaching 34.1 million visitors. (See table of top 10 blog sites for Oct.)

More impressively, however, WordPress moved up the rankings to the No. 2 position, and accounted for 11.4 million visitors, up from 2.1 million last year.

Six Apart Type Pad, dropping to No. 3, also grew - 20 percent - to nearly 10.6 million visitors in October.

(See this table to make month-to-month [Sept. ‘07 vs. Oct. ‘07] comparisons for blog sites.)

Via: Media Buyer Planner

The Saga Continues at SagaZone for the Over-50's

Saga Zone, created by the insurance and holiday company Saga Group, is becoming the social website of choice for the over-50s. The new social network site which has been running in trial mode for four months, was launched in October and currently has more than 13,000 users.

Like other social networking sites, Saga Zone members can create their own profile pages, set up their blogs, contact friends or join in online discussions. Although there are no age limits on networks such as Facebook (with more than 50 million users) or MySpace (with more than 200 million users) - these sites are heavily populated by younger users.

A survey earlier this year by media regulator Ofcom found that older surfers make up a significant proportion of the internet population, and are much more likely to spend money online. Surfers over 50 account for nearly a third of all time spent online by British web users. According to Nielsen//NetRatings data from April 2007, Over 50s (who make up 41% of the UK population) now account for nearly 30% of all time spent on the internet as seen below.

Saga Zone is not the first attempt on the social networking craze among affluent older surfers. American website Eons launched last year with a focus on the baby boom generation. But despite raising £16m from investors Eons has struggled in the popularity stakes and was forced to lay off a third of its 72 staff last month.

Kaioo >> The First REAL Social Network?

If you've been to kaioo.com, you'll notice that the new social community claims to be the first REAL social community on the internet. Kaioo is a new social networking community with a simple site design like Facebook, but with a new approach to social networking.

Kaioo sees social networking as a non-profit, democratic and independent thing. Kaioo, like other social networks allow users to create their profiles, communicate with friends, upload pictures, post videos, etc

So what makes Kaioo the REAL social network?

The key difference is that kaioo donates all advertising revenues to charity, while the operating costs are covered by sponsors. Kaioo places only a limited amount of advertising on the site, so there is no disadvantage to using Kaioo compared to any other social networking site. Users can suggest charity projects and decide by voting which projects should be supported by Kaioo.

Kaioo's independence enables the german-based social network to guarantee its users that all user data will be treated confidentially and will not be passed on to any third parties.

With so much attention and criticism on users privacy on sites like myspace.com, etc Kaioo will have to convince users that their privacy will really be protected.

Social networking right from your email account?

As was reported today on CNNMoney.com, Yahoo! and Google will soon launch another exciting feature to allow their email users social network through their email accounts. The companies are trying to make accounts into personalized home pages to challenge current social networking such as MySpace and Facebook.

With a pre-existing e-mail account which already has a social graph that shows the connections you make while you e-mail your friends, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail users can now engage in social networking with their friends, colleagues, etc

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This innovation will come at a time when the social networking market is fighting for dominance with Myspace, as the leading social network in terms of user membership.

The question is: Will email users be attracted to Yahoo! and Google's new initiative or just stick to Myspace, Facebook and others?

Bebo's Open Media Move

Bebo, this week launched its Open Media, a new platform that gives Bebo users the ability to include premium music and video content in their profiles. Media companies, on the other hand, are able to use their own branded video players without being charged for access to the Open Media platform.

This means that partners can tap into Bebo’s 40 million users, provide content, carry their own advertising and retain all the ad revenue for themselves. Having redesigned it's site, Bebo users will now have a Personal Video Profile, where they will be able to store their favorite videos and share them with friends.

One of the most important aspects of Bebo's Open Media is the fact that partners will be able to set up their pages and control how their content is distributed all by themselves, through the "Channel Profiles". Users will also be able to receive online and mobile alerts when new content appears on the media channels they choose.

How all this will affect Facebook’s recently announced pages will depend on advertisers preference, but according to Mashable, Bebo’s slant towards videos, music and entertainment will imply that Bebo will be carving a smaller, more focused niche for themselves.

Last.fm Launches OpenSocial App for Ning

Last.fm has created an application built on OpenSocial specifically for the creators of Ning. This allows individual members of the group to add the application to their personal profiles.
networks. The Last.fm application will be a Gadget option that Ning administrators can include in their group homepages.

The Last.fm app displays top music artists, which can be clicked on to direct to their artist profile on Last.fm. Users can edit the list to reflect their personal taste in music, and sync it with their own Last.fm account, which will pull their preferences from Last.fm. Additionally, users can listen to music via the application.

Social networking gets better with HiveLive

I’ve been following social networking platforms more recently especially with Google's 'OpenSocial' platform. Recently when I heard of the a new platform called HiveLive, which launched on November 5, I was expecting to see the same features that are available in other platforms.

HiveLive is a platform with a lot of standard social networking functionality. The platform's software enables companies to rapidly deploy custom-fit enterprise communities built around people, their relationships, and their shared knowledge. HiveLive possesses strong capabilities, that give ordinary users the ability to control the modules deployed within a social network.

Social networks often incorporate many Web 2.0 tools, thus with it's Web 2.0 building blocks - called "Hives" - that can be easily configured to function as a wide range of community applications (blogs, wikis, forums, FAQs, and more), HiveLive is attempting to mix things up a bit.

Network users can now choose to add their own 'hives' to an existing social network, configure the type of 'hive' (blog, forum, wiki, etc.), and then determine who within the network gets to use them. This allows users to be in control.

The HiveLive platform is flexible enough so that you don’t even have to create a hive that’s easily categorized. If you just want to share a string of items with friends, you can create a blog-like page with a variety of data types. Users can also create their own hives by copying other hives with a few clicks of the button.

So if you want to create and run a blog with friends about a shared interest or create a new blog 'hive' that everyone can see but only a few can edit or you want to collaborate on a project with team members using a 'wiki' or just create a 'wiki hive' that only a few people can access at all, HiveLive remains the first community platform that seamlessly integrates social networks and information networks.

Social Networks Overtake Web-based Emails in the UK

If you've been following the statistics of social networks recently , you'll find that social networks are starting to eat into the web-based email providers' dominance of the internet messaging market. That simply means that visits to social networks seems to have overtaking those of web-based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail, amongst others.

A recent survey by Hitwise, an online intelligence service revealed that for the first time last month, UK Internet visits to social networks overtook visits to web-based email services. In October, the top 25 social network sites including Myspace, Facebook, Bebo received 5.17% of all UK internet visits, compared to 4.98% for email services.




Well, we can say that this trend will increase in the coming months as the UK web-user population is choosing to communicate more with friends via social networks rather than email. And there's no doubt that these social networks also refer as much traffic to other websites as web-based email services.

Whatever happens, I think that social networks would continue to rely on the technologies and services of web-based email for their expansion. And users would still need these web-based emails to communicate.

ConnectHit to Compete with Facebook and MySpace?

Social networkers may now socialize on a safe, clean, new social network called ConnectHit. Hopefully. Launched on November 1, 2007, the social networking features of ConnectHit.com is described as free, clean, and safe to create one's own private community.

ConnectHit allows members (currently 7 members in the network) to share photos, blogs and interests with their growing network of friends. They can create and customize their profile pages, use chat rooms, instant messaging, create forums, quizzes, polls, and pictures.

Popular sites such as MySpace.com, Xanga.com and Facebook.com have been under heavy scrutiny and criticism more recently for the social risks they expose members to. However, ConnectHit.com plans to enter this arena as the safe, clean, fun alternative to these popular sites that are getting a lot of media attention these days.

But can ConnectHit stand the competition?

Fashion Flirts Social Networking with Fashionistas

Hmm! Fashion now has a place in today's social networking trend. The new social network - Fashionistas is a fashion-centric online social networking site dedicated to providing passionate 'fashionistas' a free, one-stop communications platform to network with fashion enthusiasts globally while keeping up to date on the events in the fashion world.

Unfortunately, as I was posting this blog a click on the site could not open its url. I figured that I perhaps needed to be a fashion enthusiasts to actually see the site.

Well, Fashionistas will be a place where people who really love fashion, I mean, fashion editors, publishers, bloggers, designers, stylists, photographers, models, and consumers can meet, discover, share, and show off their work.

The site will allow each member to list their interests in fashion and through member profile pages (with a unique url at www.fashionistas.ca/yourname) connect and collaborate with other members of the network in order to share their passions about fashion. They can also upload images, video, blogs and just about anything in the world of fashion!

Kylie Minogue's Fans Live at Kylie Konnect

Fans of the singer Kylie Minogue, can now meet at Kylie Konnect, an online social network where they can create their own profiles, post their own photos, blog entries, meet other fans and make friends.

Kylie Konnect is just like any other social network, except that everything's all about Kylie Minogue. Her profile on the site features exclusive music, news, tour information and more, and allows fans to download exclusive behind the scenes footage and have a chance to win 'money can't buy' prizes. While promoting her latest single, "2 Hearts," Kylie will use a feature on the service that lets users upload content directly from their mobile phones to offer her fans exclusive pictures taken on the road.

Fans of other artists would be interested in seeing their stars launch their own social networking sites. So what if that happens? Well, I'm sure there's still a lot of space in the socio-cyberspace. We'll see...

TechiesClubHouse invites Tech Pros for Networking

TechiesClubHouse.com is a new online community for technology professionals. The new social networking site launched October 18, 2007 is geared towards connecting engineers, IT and other tech professionals. With several social networking sites for professionals on the web today such as LinkedIn, Ryze, etc you may wonder what difference TechiesClubHouse would make in the competition for dominance.

Well, you can consider the network as a niche community specially designed for the tech professionals. Besides the usual features found in most other social networking sites, the major feature for TechiesClubHouse will be the discussion forums.

Another section of the forums is dedicated to tech-related discussions. If you have a question or need help on a programming project you can post it and (if you're lucky) a software engineer can help you. But while the major buzz of social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, YouTube etc is meeting people, sharing photos, making friends and posting videos (which I think is what users really want), TechiesClubHouse would perhaps have to seek ways to attract a greater number of users (currently having 4 members?) with more interesting features.

Perhaps their future job listing board would do the magic???

PayPerPost Sparks on with SocialSpark

PayPerPost will be launching a new social network in January 2008 called SocialSpark. The networking site will allow bloggers and advertisers (currently over 85,000 bloggers and 11,000 advertisers) to create profiles while users visiting the site will “browse the public profiles of advertisers and bloggers along with their associated sponsorship and blog related data.”

”It’s the first social network that is designed from the ground up to be advertiser-centric, while preserving the free, managed flow of user information common within other networks” said CEO Ted Murphy.

The idea is for advertisers to interact with bloggers who are willing to take pay per post type advertising and run with it.

According to Micheal Arrington at TechCrunch, there’s absolutely nothing distasteful about it as an idea, but to the extent it furthers the pollution of the blogosphere by encouraging more paid shilling, and makes us all worse off.

Yahoo! Kickstarts A New Social Network

Who would have thought that the Internet search giant Yahoo! would not want to have a share of the fast-growing online social network market? Just a few days ago rival Google teamed up with MySpace to tackle Facebook's dominance in the social network market. Now, the heat is on!

Yahoo! has launched Kickstart, an online social network that connects college students, graduates and alumni professionals on the job market. In creating Kickstart, Yahoo! fancied Facebook's fashion as a US college network, thus Kickstart's users build a profile entering their college details, photo and any other revelant information.

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However, while Facebook is widely acknowledged as a social arena, rather than a professional one, Kickstart aims to create a professional network allowing users to find internships and jobs, or get career advice and mentorship. The site allows people to create a professional profile, browse company profiles and network with peers, professors, alumni and potential employers, all in the process of kickstarting their careers.

Google Launches 'OpenSocial' Platform

As first reported at TechCrunch, Google has announced a social networking platform called OpenSocial, which includes tools to allow developers to create applications that utilize personal and social data contained in participating social networks - the first step toward putting you back in control of your online relationships.

Google appears to be supplying the "social graph" - the map of relationships between people that makes it possible for you to see when your friends add applications, photos or new connections to their profiles - with tools to allow developers access to the social graph and other personal data on participating networks.

Several players in the social networking space such as Hi5, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Orkut, Ning Engage.com, Friendster, Hyves, imeem, MySpace, Oracle, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING as well as widget developers RockYou, Slide, iLike and Flixster have all signed on to supply applications based on the platform. Unsurprisingly, Facebook is not on the list.

According to Mashable, Google finally released their open source container sample on November 9. After looking through it and the accompanying documentation, it definitely provides a good starting point for potential OpenSocial developers to begin forming the basis for their applications.

It's SocialCrunching time!

SocialCrunch, is a weblog that shares information about startup social networks. The blog, created on November 11, 2007, profiles new and existing social networking and business networking sites that are connecting people together on the new webspace.

Are you a social networker? Perhaps, you would be interested in social-crunching on this blog. SocialCrunch will passionately profile startup social sites as well as post updates on existing ones. The blog will also seek to provide relevant statistics from reliable sources such as Hitwise and Alexa of the competition in this new social webspace.

SocialCrunch is managed by Loy, an online advertiser, research consultant and web editor. If you would like to contact SocialCrunch, please send an email to: socialcrunch@gmail.com

Now, let's crunch together!