If you build it...they might not come

I'm pretty pissed off right now, I just spent over an hour typing a long post on social networking. I was doing some formatting when I hit a link in my post and it was gone, everything was gone. This happened to Fred a few months ago and at least now if it ever happens to him again I can tell him that I know how he feels. Typepad needs to implement some sort of automated saving feature within their software. This sucks, I'm drained and unmotivated to redo everything. But I guess I'll write the gist of what I wanted to share.

I ran across some interesting statistics on web traffic for social networking sites. According to Hitwise, market share in the U.S. for Internet traffic on the top 20 social networking sites grew 11.5 percent from January to February 2007. In addition, this accounted for around 6.5 percent of all Internet traffic in February 2007. What's amazing is how dominant MySpace, with it's 80% share is to it's competitors. On paper, even Facebook's 10% seems amateur when it comes to MySpace. 

 

Market    Share of US Internet Visits to Top 20 Social Networking Sites February 2007*
Rank	Name	Domain	Market Share
1	MySpace	www.myspace.com	80.74%
2	Facebook	www.facebook.com	10.32%
3	Bebo	www.bebo.com	1.18%
4	BlackPlanet.com	www.blackplanet.com	0.88%
5	Xanga	www.xanga.com	0.87%
6	iMeem	www.imeem.com	0.73%
7	Yahoo! 360	360.yahoo.com	0.72%
8	Classmates	www.classmates.com	0.72%
9	hi5	www.hi5.com	0.69%
10	Tagged	www.tagged.com	0.67%
11	LiveJournal	www.livejournal.com	0.49%
12	Gaiaonline.com	www.gaiaonline.com	0.48%
13	Friendster	www.friendster.com	0.34%
14	Orkut	www.orkut.com	0.26%
15	Live Spaces	spaces.live.com	0.18%
16	HoverSpot	www.hoverspot.com	0.18%
17	Buzznet	www.buzznet.com	0.18%
18	Sconex	www.sconex.com	0.14%
19	MiGente.com	www.migente.com	0.11%
20	myYearbook	www.myyearbook.com	0.11%
Note    - data is based on custom category of 20 of the leading social networking    websites ranked by market share of visits, which is the percentage of    traffic to the site, based on Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet    users. The percentages represent the market share of visits among the    websites within the custom category.
Source:    Hitwise

MySpace's success would at this point seem to have little to do with the sites features and overall usability. Let's face it, the site itself is crap. From spam, to hacking, and of course how could we forget that ad clutter. These are all huge reasons why I never spend any time on the site. None the less, MySpace seems to transcend it's reputation for poor user experience. There's a plethora of alternative social networking sites out:

As a platform for social networking, it wouldn't be hard to offer features, tools, and settings better than the those available on MySpace. Your overall level of usability might result in a better user experience than that offered by MySpace, but at the end of the day, social networking is about the network. The reality is that most people won't join a network that their friends are not a part of. For example, I'm a member on Virb. I think it's one of the better designed social networking sites out there. But I almost never spend any time on Virb because I hardly know anyone who networks there. It just goes to show you that social networking will always be about the people. You can have all the tricks and trinkets in the business, but that doesn't mean people will show up. Facilitating the interaction is hard enough. But even though MySpace is sitting pretty right now, as they continually show that they have little taste for user experience, their market share will eventually start declining. It's inevitable, MySpace will lose favor over time!   

Comments

[Chris Guthrie]

Zach, I'm here to tell you that if you build it they WILL come.