Facebook World’s Top Social Networking Mogul
San Francisco — According to the latest figures released Wednesday by web tracking firm comScore represents that Facebook has overtaken MySpace to become the world’s most popular social networking site with 132 million unique visitors in June, for a staggering 153 percent growth rate in the last year, according to comScore.
“However, social networks must stay relevant in order to thrive outside the English-speaking world.”
comScore said Facebook grew 38 per cent in the US, where it had 49 million visitors in June.
The strongest growth was in Latin America, where Facebook’s visitors grew by 1055 per cent. The number of European visitors tripled to 35 million a month, while growth in the Middle East and Africa was 400 per cent. In the Asia Pacific region visitors increased 458 per cent.
“Facebook has done an exceptional job of leveraging its brand internationally during the past year,” comScore executive Jack Flanagan said in a statement from the company. “By increasing the site’s relevance to local markets through local language interface translation, the site is now competing strongly or even capturing the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just a year ago.”
MySpace is second at 113 million visitors (3 percent growth year-over-year), and Hi5 grew its global audience 100 percent to land at 56 million unique visitors.
Social networking sites are important to advertisers as they attract large numbers of visitors that tend to linger and return frequently.
Facebook, which took the global initiative to lead among social networking sites in April 2008, has made a concerted effort to become more culturally relevant to markets outside of North America by launching several market-specific natural language interfaces.
Considering of social networking’s worldwide growth as a variation of performance artist Laurie Anderson’s song, “Language is a Virus.” Language/translation efforts by the likes of Facebook, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and Bebo have helped the contagion of social networking spread worldwide, with comScore reporting growth rates of 66 percent in the Middle East/Africa, 35 percent in Europe, 33 percent in Latin America and 23 percent in Asia.
“I think the scalability of some of these U.S. brands into international markets has been a big factor,” Andrew Lipman, comScore senior analyst said in a statement. “Specifically, if you look at Facebook and Hi5, what they are doing in terms of foreign language interface translation and their emphasis on cultural relevance in each of the markets they are expanding to, has helped them grow pretty dramatically across all global regions.”
“Translation opens the door, and all the other things follow,” Mike Trigg, vice president of marketing for Hi5, quoted as saying to TechNewsWorld. Those can include more users contributing to the site and special content deals with local providers, such as a music awards promotion deal Hi5 landed in Asia.
Nick O’Neill, a blogger at AllFacebook and Social Times, noted that the report may suggest that the previous large shifts of users from Friendster to MySpace and finally to Facebook may begin to slow as users “begin to settle into their favorite sites.” He added that Facebook’s large growth rates abroad mean the network is on the fast track to becoming the global social networking leader by a significant margin.
“MySpace was only able to 3% worldwide growth over the past year,” O’Neill added. “These statistics highlight the ongoing global competition for social network audiences. The discussion of monetization may still be premature for many, as the battle for global leadership is ongoing.”
MySpace, which has around 120 million members, was acquired by News Corp. for $US582 million in 2005.
Facebook, which was started by Mark Zuckerberg as a service exclusively for Harvard students, had a slower ramp up, opening up to the general public in 2006. However, its growth has been astonishing and it now claims more than 90 million active (an important qualifier) members. Last year Microsoft paid $US240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook, valuing the site at $US15 billion.
“Execs at MySpace are probably sweating over the comScore figures as all the other major sites clocked up double or triple-digit growth.”