MySpace scrabbles to hold top position


17 Jan 2008

As social networking sites Bebo and Facebook steadily gain ground, the News Corp-owned MySpace tells the world that it is still going strong, capturing 75pc of the market share in 2007.

While three quarters of social network users are members of MySpace, the site is a granddad in comparison to its competitors being launched as far back as 1999, while Bebo was born a mere three years ago and Facebook in 2004.

In this context MySpace’s self-declaration of “the world’s most popular social network” does not seem as safe given that its 73.32pc share of visitors among the top ten social networking sites in the US has dropped from 78.89pc year-on-year.

Meanwhile Facebook’s percentage of overall visitors has leapt from 10.59pc to 16.03pc: a year-on-year change of 51pc, with Bebo’s share increasing by 10pc.

However, MySpace does seem to have loyal followers with its members visiting the social site more often and staying for longer than its competitors’ members.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned site reported that in December 2007 the average user clocked up just over two hours and fifteen minutes online.

While MySpace is scrabbling to look brave in the face of competition, Facebook is busy swatting away legal action from Scrabble‘s manufacturers Mattel and Hasbro due to its popular application Scrabulous.

The companies claim the popular application with a 2.4 million-strong following infringes on its own board game. This spells trouble for Scrabulous creators Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla who told the Guardian that they had contacted Hasbro last year to inform them of their creation.

By Marie Boran