MySpace May Still Dominate in the U.S., But (Surprise!) Facebook is Catching Up Fast Worldwide

Here’s a little anti-spin on the Hitwise numbers that just came out showing that MySpace still rules social networking in the U.S. (See Duncan’s earlier post). Hitwise says that MySpace commands a 72 percent market share of visits to the top ten social networking sites, while Facebook has only gained a 16 percent market share. I find the way Hitwise discloses its data to be confusing—72 percent of what exactly? Why don’t they just tell us how many people they think visited the site? We can do our own math.

Any way you slice it, the numbers are surprising. Isn’t Facebook supposed to be on a rocket ride? So I decided to look at what comScore has to say on the matter of MySpace versus Facebook (not that they are perfect, but at least they give an actual estimate of how many people they think visited a particular site).

The numbers on comScore corroborate that Facebook is still lagging MySpace, but not by as much as Hitwise would have you think. In December, comScore reports that MySpace had 69 million unique visitors compared to 35 million for Facebook. That would give Facebook about half the market share of MySpace, not one fifth.

Maybe by”visits,” Hitwise means page views. Again, the comScore numbers confirm that MySpace is trouncing Facebook in the U.S. with 38 billion page views in December 2007, versus 13 billion for Facebook. Even so, that gives Facebook a third as much “market share” as MySpace. Of course, Hitwise data and comScore data are apples and oranges because they’ve been collected using different methods and different sources. I offer this more as a gut check.

Regardless of what data better reflects who is winning the social-networking race in the U.S., the real story is happening elsewhere. A peak at the global comScore numbers (as of November 2007) produces this doozy: Facebook has nearly caught up to MySpace with 93 million unique visitors worldwide versus MySpace’s 105 million. And in minutes spent on the site, it has actually surpassed MySpace with 21 billion minutes for Facebook versus 17 billion minutes for MySpace. (Although, it is still lagging in page views, 42 billion to 48 billion). The Web is a global game, and MySpace might be about to lose it.

Link to TechCrunch Article

Facebook Revamps Beacon Program Amid Protests

CONFRONTED WITH GROWING RESISTANCE TO its new ad program, Facebook late Thursday said it would no longer publish information about users' online purchases without their explicit consent.

The move comes nine days after activist organization MoveOn.org launched a protest group on Facebook demanding that the company revamp its three-week-old Beacon program, which tells members about their friends' purchases on other sites. MoveOn urged that Facebook not share such information without first obtaining users' affirmative agreement. By Thursday, more than 50,000 members had joined the MoveOn group, dubbed "Petition: Facebook, stop invading my privacy!"

Facebook capitulated to the protesters late Thursday, announcing that it would require users' opt-in consent to the Beacon program.

The social networking site said it will no longer post any information about people's shopping activity "without users proactively consenting." "We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice," the company said in a statement.

MoveOn spokesman Adam Green called Facebook's decision "a huge step in the right direction."

Previously, Facebook notified members about the Beacon program at the point-of-purchase and on the Facebook site, and allowed people to opt-out on either of those occasions. But if users didn't see those notices, or ignored them, the company shared information about their purchases by default.

It wasn't just users who had privacy concerns about that technique. Some of Facebook's advertisers also were retreating.

One major e-commerce player, Overstock.com, told OnlineMediaDaily it suspended the Beacon program on Nov. 21--the same day The Associated Press reported that one Facebook member was dismayed to learn that her boyfriend had been notified about a gift she purchased for him at Overstock.com. That was also the day influential Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li blogged about being "blindsided" when Facebook notified her friends that she had purchased a coffee table on Overstock.

The company said it wouldn't reinstate the Beacon program unless Facebook made changes to guarantee that users' information isn't shared without their explicit consent. "Our primary requirement is that the program allows customers to 'opt-in' as opposed to requiring them to 'opt-out' of participating," an Overstock spokesman said.

Travelocity, although touted by Facebook as a launch advertiser, was troubled enough by the program that it had not started using it as of Thursday.

"We have examined the process to make sure that Facebook members using Travelocity are given opportunities to control whether information about their shopping on our site is published in their Facebook profile," a company spokesman said. "Ahead of our launch, we are watching the program closely to make sure this process is working properly."

This cautious statement marked a notable shift from three weeks ago, when the company's chief marketing officer Jeff Glueck boasted about the program. "Using Beacon, Travelocity users can now easily choose to spread the news of their latest vacation plans on Facebook as a complement to their activities on the Travelocity website," he said in a statement when the program launched.

Link to MediaPost Article

Facebook May Revamp Beacon

After pressure from MoveOn and members, the social network may change a policy on sharing info on users' Web buying and activities

In the wake of mounting criticism, Facebook executives are discussing changes to a controversial advertising tool that publicizes users' Web activities outside of the popular social network. Alterations to the recently introduced Beacon system could be announced as early as Nov. 29, BusinessWeek.com has learned.

Executives of the three-year-old company were in deep talks over proposed changes late into the afternoon on Nov. 28, according to a person familiar with the matter. At issue is the Beacon program, which alerts members' Facebook "friends" to purchases and other activities on third-party Web sites. A spokesperson for the company declined to discuss changes, reiterating an earlier statement: "Facebook is listening to feedback from its users and committed to evolving Beacon."

Too much disclosure

Critics say Beacon constitutes an invasion of privacy. They've clamored for the reversal of a feature that requires users to opt out of inclusion each time Facebook wants to send information and demanded that Facebook switch to an opt-in policy. A move to scale back Beacon may appease at least some of the more than 40,000 people who have signed a petition, begun Nov. 20 by public policy group MoveOn.org, that urged Facebook to turn off the system unless users explicitly say they want to share their actions. "It should have been an opt-in program to start out with," says Matt Flaschen, a Georgia Tech sophomore and Facebook member who signed MoveOn's petition. "If I want to go to a movie, why does everyone on my Facebook need to know about that?"

Even as Facebook mollifies disgruntled users, it risks rankling some of the partners that signed on in hopes of benefiting as members broadcast their purchases—say, from Blockbuster (BBI) or eBay (EBAY)—to a circle of friends. As part of the Beacon arrangement, partners pay for what Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg has called "trusted referrals." The idea is that Facebook users will be more apt to patronize the sites and stores their friends are using. On Nov. 6, when he announced the system, Zuckerberg called trusted referrals the "holy grail" of advertising (BusinessWeek.com, 11/07/07).

"I Feel Duped"

Many users considered it more of an unholy alliance. One member complained of a spoiled Christmas after Facebook broadcast the person's purchases on Overstock.com (OSTK), a partner site. Other users said they were creeped out after friends learned of actions they never realized were forwarded to their Facebook lists.

Several people complained they weren't given the option not to share information publicly, or that pop-up notices on partner sites were too subtle to notice. Kim Garvey, a 21-year-old junior at Chicago's DePaul University, says she found out about Beacon after friends were alerted to a restaurant review she posted on Yelp. "I didn't see the little thing that popped up, and I didn't mean to tell everyone," Garvey says."For me, that was sort of uncomfortable." She adds that she was surprised Facebook "is willing to invade people's privacy."

On Nov. 27, Facebook tweaked its system to ensure that users were clearly notified, both on Facebook and on partner sites, that news of an off-Facebook activity would be sent to friends, unless the member explicitly declined to send that information. The change did little, however, to appease upset users, many of whom don't want Facebook to share information on their Web activity for advertising purposes—even if it's shared with people they’ve identified as friends. "I feel duped," says Frank Kruller, a Facebook member for seven months. "If I wanted to share something with my friends I'm pretty sure I could tell them myself."

Threatened mutiny

Any move that weakens Beacon's appeal to advertisers leaves Facebook under pressure to find other ways to lure marketers and justify the lofty $15 billion valuation bestowed by Microsoft (MSFT) in October, when it purchased a 5% stake for $240 million (BusinessWeek.com, 10/25/07). Users of social networks are typically less responsive to standard ad formats, such as the posterlike banner ads commonly seen on the Web, than to newer, more interactive or personalized advertisements. Some marketers say that when they place banner ads on Facebook, the so-called click-through rate, a measure of user responsiveness, is one-fifth the rate for the larger Web.

But many Facebook users insist that they, not marketers, should set the terms of how, and how much of, their information is shared for advertising purposes. Some threatened to move to other social networks or start their own blogs if Facebook takes that decision out of their hands. "I will set up my own blog," says Flaschen. "It is a little less convenient, but if [Facebook] can't understand the privacy implications of what they are doing then it's not worth it."

Adam Green, a spokesman for MoveOn, hopes other social networks that have their own Facebook-like feeds about users' actions—namely, News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace—take heed of such warnings. "We hope that this is opening a lot of people's eyes to the very real privacy concerns on the Internet," says Green. "The privacy interests of Internet users should get put before the wish list of corporate advertisers."

Link to BusinessWeek Article

Smiles, Everyone

Online hookup site MySpace is beginning to look a lot less like Facebook and a lot more like MTV.

The show writes itself. four cute girls fresh out of college move into an apartment in Los Angeles. In one episode a leggy brunette, Peyton, walks in on Violet while she's in her lacy underwear. Another time Violet rubs on lotion and takes a bubble bath. Later in the season Peyton makes out with a guy on the couch in front of her friends.

This is Roommates, a new faux reality show that is getting heavy promotion on MySpace. It has the distinction of being the first series conceived by, and exclusively for, the social networking Web site. Episodes are only three minutes. Plot is mostly nonexistent, and it seems to be a ripoff of MTV's The Hills, another show about young women living a reality-nonreality conundrum in L.A.

MySpace says Roommates is a hit, but that depends how you define "is" and "hit." The series' 19 shows have garnered a combined 3.7 million views, about half of what Katie Couric gets in one night. A typical YouTube hit gets 1 million views.

Hit or not, Roommates is making some waves for MySpace, owned by News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ) MySpace is still the biggest in the business, with 72 million unique visitors in the U.S. in October, according to ComScore (nasdaq: SCOR - news - people ). Its home page is one of the most valuable on the Web, with 130 million page views each day, says MySpace. MySpace has been a great investment for Rupert Murdoch since his News Corp. swooped in with a $650 million deal for Intermix, the former parent of MySpace. This year MySpace is expected to earn News Corp. $200 million to $300 million before interest and taxes on $800 million in revenue.

But MySpace's user growth is slowing, those who go there are spending less time per visit, and rival networks such as Facebook are rising fast. And try as MySpace might to dominate Internet video, YouTube has pretty much walked off with the business (see chart).

"Everyone thinks YouTube is taking over TV on the Internet, but we had 51 million unique streamers [in June]," says MySpace Chief Christopher DeWolfe. But by September, that figure fell to 38 million. With growth slowing, DeWolfe is having to get creative--and that means going Hollywood and making his own content. "We have done dozens of new deals with Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), Fox, NBC, the NBA and the NHL, and now we have our own content," he says. He sees Internet video becoming one of MySpace's primary revenue streams.

Social networks were supposed to be anti-Big Media, created by and for other members. And while most of what's on MySpace continues to be of the babies-eating-dog-food genre, it turns out that this isn't worth much to advertisers, nor are the couple hundred million member-profile pages plastered with photos of people showing off their abs. "Brands like P&G do not want to advertise on Web pages that have 14-year-old girls kissing each other," says Jared Pobre of Ideal Exposure, an ad firm in Irvine, Calif.

But show a commercial before or during a professionally produced video and you can bring in as much as $60 per thousand visitors in ad revenue. MySpace has aired a teen drama series from Michael Eisner's Web production company, edited-down versions of retro TV shows such as Starsky & Hutch and in November debuted Quarterlife, a prime-time-quality drama series.

YouTube and Facebook have avoided spending money on original content and instead stick to letting their users and other producers make stuff for them. Previous attempts by Internet companies to become production houses--even when run by former TV executives--have failed. In early 2005 Yahoo (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) Media Group announced big plans to produce its own shows for the Web, to be spearheaded by former ABC Entertainment Television Group chairman Lloyd Braun. But Braun left under a cloud in late 2006, and Yahoo now produces almost no original content.

MySpace TV General Manager Jeffrey Berman insists he will not suffer the same fate: His bets are small, and he always tries to line up a sponsor first. "We're not going to do this if it means throwing millions of dollars down a hole," he says.

Online shows like Roommates can be made for $3,000. Per minute, that comes to 1% to 2% of what producers spend making prime-time shows for broadcast networks. MySpace is financing the 45 episodes, which are being made by Iron Sink Media, a producer in L.A. The show was profitable before the cameras rolled, thanks to an estimated $500,000 sponsorship from Ford. In one episode Sigourney buys a new car. Guess which brand? Viewers like girls more than ads. The episode in which Sigourney test-drives her Ford Focus has had 47,000 views so far. "The Exhibitionist," which features a half-naked girl, has had a million plays.

A year ago MySpace was unsure how to make money on its vault of videos. That changed in April when MySpace aired Prom Queen, an 80-episode (each a minute and a half) teen drama by Michael Eisner's new-media studio, Vuguru. The episodes, which aired on multiple sites, brought in an average 200,000 views apiece. Eisner's team sold product placements, proving that there was a way to make money advertising in online videos. A spinoff aired this summer.

MySpace TV became an official division in June under Berman, a former public defender from the D.C. suburbs. He has hired a handful of people from the TV industry, including folks from CNN, HBO and Scott Rudin Productions. They've already signed content deals with some veteran producers. MySpace distributes Sony's Minisode Network, which offers pared-down versions of old shows like Fantasy Island and What's Happening!! Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) is the sponsor.

Quarterlife is a show about coming of age in the blog era, by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the duo that created TV classics Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. Herskovitz and Zwick, who originally conceived the show for prime-time TV, put up at least $50,000 to shoot each eight-minute episode. MySpace gets to run it exclusively for the first 24 hours. Then it gets syndicated to quarterlife.com and a week later to multiple sites, including YouTube, Facebook and Imeem.

Berman would rather keep the content on his site and grab more of the ad revenue. In MySpace's Artist on Artist, celebrity actors, musicians and filmmakers interview one another, coincidentally around the time they release a new record or movie, as was the case when The Darjeeling Limited director Wes Anderson and actor Owen Wilson did the show. The program, like many others, was conceived by MySpace's marketing department and leaves a subtle "I think I've just been advertised to" aftertaste.

MySpace has also put on 100 free concerts, called Secret Shows. Dates and locations are shared only with "friends" of Secret Shows. Headlining bands have included the Killers and Gnarls Barkley. Secret Shows spawned a similar program for comedians called Secret Stand-Up. MySpace also streams live concerts on its site and has its own record label.

Social networking sites have worries other media companies do not, like trying to avoid their association in the public's mind with perverts. In September MySpace arranged for starlet Amanda Bynes to appear at a free, MySpace-hosted screening of her new film, Sydney White. MySpace invited members who had "friended" MySpace's Black Curtain Screenings online. Bynes, 21, stood in front of the theater against a MySpace banner and fielded questions from the audience, which was filled with young girls and some older men who sat in the rear. One girl asked Bynes, who has MySpace pages for her movie and clothing line, if she also had a personal MySpace page. "No," said Bynes. "Why not?" asked the girl. "My parents won't let me. For security reasons. I don't want to get stalked." MySpace's marketers groaned.

MySpace cofounder Thomas Anderson is dismissive of the utilitarian approach taken by its faster-growing rival Facebook, which focuses on the software and leaves content creation to thousands of developers who've made popular games and other diversions that keep people coming back. "They want to be an operating system. We want to be fun and cool and relevant to culture," he says. Anderson is considering a number of new ventures, including offering an online invite service and helping MySpacers share reviews of restaurants and clubs.

It's too early to rule on MySpace's ability to dominate popular culture. Meanwhile, another episode of Roommates tapes at a nondescript house in L.A.'s Studio City, and Jeffrey Berman and his staff of mostly oh-so-cool kids in their 20s sit around a table in Beverly Hills, discussing a dozen ideas, including a dating show, a hidden camera show and a spoof on cop dramas.

Link to Forbes Article

Facebook's hopes to enter the tangled web of China gain momentum

Facebook appears to have decided on acquisition as its preferred method of entering the booming Chinese market, after months of speculation about how the social networking website would tap the country’s rapid growth and avoid the pitfalls that have slowed earlier overseas venturers.

Facebook is reported to have offered $85 million (£41 million) to buy Zhanzuo.com, its largest Chinese counterpart, which has an estimated seven million active users and a popular base among students.

It would give Facebook a ready-made entry point to the largest internet market outside the United States.

A spokeswoman told The Times that Jack Zhang, Zhanzuo’s chief executive, and Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, were acquainted but this did not mean that they intended to reach a deal – for the moment.

She added, however, that “there could be more information by the end of the month”.

Facebook already boasts more than 100,000 users of its English-language network in China and rumours of its local-language entry were fuelled with the company’s recent registration in China of the domain facebook.cn.

Entering the Chinese market carries risks for foreign companies.

The publicity that surrounded Yahoo!’s decision to comply with Chinese police demands to provide details of the e-mails of Shi Tao, a journalist later sentenced to ten years in jail on charges of leaking state secrets, has served as a warning to outside players.

Moreover, censorship and state monitoring of the internet provide a potential quagmire for would-be internet entrants.

Any attempt to search for the three T’s of Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen Square sets off alarm bells among China’s vigilant cyberspace police, likewise an attempt to find reference to the banned Falun Gong quasi-religious movement.

Most servers have barriers in place that tell a user to try another term in these cases.

Rebecca Mackinnon, an expert in new media at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre, said that foreign firms may prefer to use a local partner who is more aware of where the line is drawn and how to avoid crossing it.

Ms MacKinnon said: “If the authorities see people organising a group with political aims not consistent with the Communist Party, then they will shut it down.

"The nightmare would be if someone organised a Falun Gong cell on their watch and the officials come in and close down your business.”

Tangos Chan, an internet analyst, thought that the entry of Facebook was only a question of time, but said: “There has been no successful foreign acquisition in China.”

It was too early, he added, to tell if the April launch of a Chinese-language Myspace had been a success.

Link to Times UK Article

The Old College Try: Who Will Give Students Their Facebook Back?

While Alice Mathias may have overplayed the frivolous uses of Facebook for college students in her article called The Fakebook Generation published in the Grey Lady a few weeks ago, she was certainly correct in saying that Facebook lost a certain je ne sais quoi for students when it opened up to the real world last fall.

So instead of trying to take this $15 billion animal head on, as one $222 billion beast is attempting to do, startups might be wise to try capturing the niche that Facebook has intentionally left behind. Of course, there are a handful of reasons to think there will never be another social network that catches on so quickly and so thoroughly with college students. Namely, Facebook itself, which still holds the attention of the vast majority of college students. Personally, I think any company that tries to create a social network for college students faces a very steep uphill battle. But you can’t blame them for trying.

Let’s say you did want to capitalize on students’ (growing?) discontent with the “mature” Facebook; what strategy would you follow? You’d probably want to take a few pages out of Facebook’s own, er, book by restricting membership to users with .edu email addresses, gradually opening up to elite schools, and keeping things stupidly simple. But you’d also have to provide something particularly unique, useful, or entertaining that tempts mainstream Facebook users to jump ship.

We’ve taken a look at the websites out there claiming that they are the next “it” social network for college students. And we’ve got to say: overall, we’re not terribly impressed. Only one stands out - a website called College Tonight - and this because of its novel attempt to bring social networking back into the real world. College Tonight is well-designed and has some features you won’t find in other social networks, such as an area for lost and found items at your school and a place to “drunk dial” with messages you can take back in the morning (if you’re up and out of bed in time). The company behind this site, which launches Monday, also has a set of undisclosed features in the works that tempt us into believing that they might actually appeal enough to college students to survive. We’ll have to write more about them later once we’re more informed.

The other decent site among the bunch is Carmun, a site that encourages students to help each other study. Students post questions they have about essays and tests the are studying for, and others hypothetically help them find the answers and information they need. While the site is attractive enough, I don’t see many students helping other students with the homework no one wants to do.

The rest of them are either really badly designed, ghost towns, gimmicks, or abandoned by their owners (plus, most don’t require .edu addresses to register so what’s the point?). Let’s take a look:

ConnectU - This site was created by the very same Harvard students currently in court with Facebook over whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole their code. It’s poorly designed, not very functional, and doesn’t look like it’s been updated significantly for a long time.

CollegeHotList - An NYU project that has not yet launched…and probably will never launch (I’ve seen talk on the internet about it that dates back to early 2006).

PlayboyU - A social network built on Ning but branded by Playboy that has only 5,000-some members after launching on August 22. The whole thing feels like a gimmick, and many of the profiles appear to be fake (there’s no way that many attractive people signed up on their own). There’s very little value added by its association with Playboy.

CampusMatch - A romantically-themed college social network that dates back quite a few years and is almost certainly abandoned. It’s too bad too, because a college network with a focus on love/hooking up has a lot of potential.

CampusGrind - This one has a cluttered design and serves more as an information center for teens, with its advice columns, than a true social network.

CampusBug - A site overwhelmed by its sponsorships and overloaded with educational tools like a bibliography creator and flashcards.

CampusCentral - It’s not a good sign when the copyright at the bottom of your pages says 2005. This one’s a ghost town, and tailored to Canadian students, too.

CrushTV - This one’s filled mostly with video and photographic content provided by the site itself. While having videos of babes in bikinis will draw some eyeballs, don’t expect many college students to stay too long.

LifeAtCollege - Awful, awful design.

College.com - Packed with too many extraneous features like sections for news, academics, and greek life. Plus, who wants to rate their professors in their social network?

Uspot - Launched in early 2006…now says “We’ll be back shortly…” on homepage. Not good.

So there you have it. Now who’s going to step up to the plate and give college students an attractive alternative to Facebook? As you can see, you won’t have much competition aside from maybe College Tonight. So get on it, my collegiate friends.

Link to TechCrunch Article

Publicis' Levy Blasts Facebook Deal, Warns Ad Dollars Don't Support Online Investments

CALLING MICROSOFT'S $240 MILLION INVESTMENT in Facebook "insane," and asserting that that there is not enough advertising budgets to support the rapid expansion of online advertising services, Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy warned that the industry was approaching the kind of hyper inflated economics that led to the so-called dot-com crash in 2000-01. In an address at this weekend's Monaco Media Forum Levy cautioned that the rapid run-up in the valuation of ad-supported online services may turn out to be fool's gold. "Everyone is seeing advertising as the manna. Far too many people are building plans based on advertising and they may well be disappointed because there is not enough money for everyone," Levy asserted, according to a report in this morning's edition of the Financial Times. "It's exactly the same situation as we saw at the end of the 1990s, when everyone thought that because he had a website he'd get the valuation. Now everyone building a Web 2.0 operation believes he will receive the advertising."

Levy is a co-chair of the 2007 forum, which marks the second year of the international advertising summit organized by Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Levy was especially critical of the social networking craze and of the valuation generated by Microsoft's acquisition of 1% of Facebook, which he termed "unbalanced" relative to the potential advertising value of the social media marketplace.

He said the "bloom" was off the "Myspace rose," and that the exuberance driving investments in online social networks has yet to be proven by practical advertising models.

Link to MediaPost Article

Facebook lets users choose to publicize themselves

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook, the social-network site that has enjoyed explosive growth in new members over the past three months, said it plans to let users tell the rest of the world how to find them on the site.

Starting later on Wednesday, Facebook will begin notifying members they have a choice over whether to keep their listings private or to allow Facebook to make their name and profile picture available when outsiders search the site.

The Palo Alto, California-based site has grown to 39 million members, up 62.5 percent from 24 million in late May.

By publicizing member profiles, Facebook could attract a new wave of users. Unlike most sites on the Web, Facebook has previously denied access by search services to information on the site.

But after notifying users over the next 30 days of its plans to open up basic profile listings of its members, Facebook plans to begin allowing sites like Google, Yahoo or others to "crawl," or index, its public member profiles.

Early next month, non-members of Facebook will be able to type the names of friends or acquaintances into a search box on Facebook's home page at http://www.facebook.com to see if they have public profiles on Facebook in order to contact them.

But the move could still prove controversial among some members who prize the privacy protections Facebook offers relative to more open sites. Many members have criticized Facebook policy changes.

A year ago, Facebook weathered a privacy storm among students disturbed by changes that exposed users' postings to their friends. More recent changes that drew in more adults have also provoked concern among the site's core student base that parents and authority figures can monitor their activity.

Link to Reuters Article

Profiting from Social Networking

Users at social network Facebook are exploring software applications by outside developers, but the question remains: How do you make money from them?

Here are two potentially billion-dollar questions: How can you turn the Web's social-network users into consumers? And how can you turn idle browsing into a flourishing bottom line? Back in May, marketers hoped they might have the answer when social-networking giant Facebook opened its network to external developers. This instantly allowed them potential direct access to a user group of millions who are notoriously unimpressed by traditional advertising methods. The only challenge: developing real-world applications that users might want to embed in their profiles, which would have a real-world effect beyond mere entertainment.

Three months later, it's clear that there's no foolproof formula for success. Companies categorize their own applications from a list of 22 options and, as such, "businesses" come from across the board. In fact, the most popular "business" listing is Total Sports Fan, a sports application run by Boris Silver, a Wharton School student who has no plans to exploit the app as a business. In fact, he says, he listed it in that category because "he just kind of wanted to." This free-and-easy attitude is all part of the territory, and other, more serious-minded ventures need to not only understand this attitude but be willing to live with it.

Know Your Audience

Four of the most popular applications within the category include the virtual trading program Fantasy Stock Exchange, a recruitment specialist called Jobster Career Networking, an environmental activist app known as I am Green, and a person-to-person loan service called the Lending Club, which has what may be the most successful business model. Though they've attracted 174,000 users among them to date, capitalizing on those users is still a challenge. Here, we assess what they're doing right, analyze what they could be doing better, and determine what their stories can teach other companies that want to enter the space.

First: This is Facebook, kids. Despite its exploding demographic, this is still a forum for the young: 56.4% of users are under 35, according to ComScore. Applications need to be appropriate and relevant to that audience. Those hoping to extract money from a Facebook user need to understand what's at the network's core. Kevin Rablois, vice-president for strategy at San Francisco-based Slide, the largest developer of Facebook applications, says there are two ways for a business application to grow: through exploiting its social side or by providing users with a means for self-expression.

The Fantasy Stock Exchange (FSX) application, sponsored by virtual stock trading site HedgeStop.com, is currently the second most popular business application, with 92,000 users signing up since its launch in early July. On the application, as on its mother site, users trade virtual money based on real-time figures provided by NYSE and NASDAQ. The application loads content directly from HedgeStop.com and the 18- to 35-year-old players using it represent a similar demographic to those already using the company's core Web site.

Getting Beyond Marketing

HedgeStop.com hopes to earn money by selling banner advertising space on its application pages, promoting the idea that virtual traders can be real spenders. But since Chief Executive Daniel Carroll admits that targeted users are "mostly beginners" who don't yet have real funds to trade, they are also unlikely to be big spenders. Not to mention that an old-fashioned ad business model rather misses the point of the forum. Young users are wary of potential manipulation, and may be turned off FSX altogether if advertising gets too intrusive. Finally, the application has yet to offer features unique to Facebook. There seems to be no reason users shouldn't simply go right to HedgeStop.com.

It's a common mistake, says Facebook Senior Platform Manager Dave Morin. According to him, too many companies still see applications as marketing rather than as new business. They bring users to an application either to advertise to them or to build a connection they hope will subsequently send users off Facebook and to their main business—a company Web site, say, or its online store. Instead, companies should be trying to make the application into a self-sustaining business that generates revenue through the service it provides on Facebook. "The applications that are the most successful are the ones that integrate seamlessly into Facebook," Morin says, a model that conveniently supports Facebook's own business ambitions.

A Business-to-Business Model

At the same time, most users expect Facebook to be entertaining and, well, free, so getting them to pay for an application directly is unlikely. Companies such as the career networking site Jobster.com are trying to get other businesses to pay for access to Facebook users.

On Jobster's Facebook application, called Jobster Career Networking, users post résumés and declare career goals. Jobster then feeds those résumés to companies such as Nike (NKE), GE (GE), and Merrill Lynch (MER), which pay a $100 monthly premium fee to access résumés from Facebook. That's in addition to the $300 they pay for résumés from the main Jobster.com database. It's a premium they're prepared to pay to access young workers with perhaps nontraditional backgrounds. "We aren't after the companies that want a classic job board," says Jobster's Vice-President for Corporate Communications Christian Anderson. In its first month on Facebook, Jobster Career Networking moved 300 companies from regular to premium membership and brought in 50 new partners, generating several hundred thousand dollars in revenue, according to Jobster CEO Jason Goldberg.

Given that Facebook is a social network whose main function is entertainment, there's a danger that job hunting may not be an activity users wish to load onto their profile, when they can do so just as well on Jobster.com or any other job search site. In fact, mixing business with pleasure is a concern for users who might not want their new boss hearing about their high jinks on vacation. This reality could provide a stumbling block for Jobster's latest feature, which enables users to add endorsements from Facebook friends to their résumé cover letters.

Rablois is skeptical of Jobster's plan. "Why would I want recommendations of my skills or a dedication posted along with drunken photographs?" he wonders. And won't employers disregard friends' recommendations as entirely, unashamedly biased?

Showing a Green Side

Jobster's Anderson says users have expressed the same concern. "We've really had to work to clarify that companies won't see your profile, that you won't be 'friending' companies." Consequently, says Anderson, they won't be able to judge the friends you cite as references; they'll just know how many recommendations you have. But this means that Jobster Career Networking has to restrict its links to the social core of Facebook to function as a professional application. It's a risky strategy. Given that the application adds little to users' experience of Facebook, they might as well use Jobster.com or other recruitment sites. If users ultimately decide against linking their private and professional lives, companies will be quick to pull their support. For now, though, it's paying off: 52,000 users have downloaded the application since late July.

I am Green lets users list simple environmentally conscious choices they make in their daily lives on their public Facebook profiles.

On the application's main page, users can talk about green technology, organic produce, and environmental issues. Founder Karel Baloun, a former Facebook employee, plans to monetize his 27,494 users by selling advertising space and selling green products on manufacturers' behalf. Baloun says he'll avoid young users' hostility to advertising by providing content only from the green companies they already like and discuss on the application page and by polling them about the brands they'd like to see involved.

Slide's Rablois thinks this might work, because users committed to a niche cause might be eager to buy green products. Then again, potential sponsors might not pay much to participate in such a niche market. Like HedgeStop.com, Baloun is trying to bring an old media business model into a new media space.

Fees for Lending Service

The smallest of these four business applications may be the closest to developing the most appropriate business model. On Lending Club, a person-to-person lending company that launched via a Facebook application in May, the social component is at the center of its business model. Borrowers load the application to meet up with lenders from within their existing Facebook networks and social groups. They then negotiate rates directly. Once an agreement has been made, they head to LendingClub.com, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., to enter bank account details, so funds can be transferred directly between accounts. Lending Club takes a small cut, up to 3%, of each loan.

Says Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche, "Person-to-person lending works best in an a environment where people feel connected to one another, lending to friends and friends of friends." He also claims that peers trust peers to give better rates than a bank. So far, the site has attracted 13,163 users. With its 3% transaction fees, Laplanche estimates that by the end of August, the company will have moved $1 million since its June launch. But the revenue for the company in the same three-month interval is only $30,000. Given the minimal costs of maintaining the Web site and its relatively small staff of 21 people, this may be enough for now, but as the application grows, its infrastructure costs will expand. Raising the company's commission, however, would quickly jeopardize its value proposition to users.

Facebook, where users expect applications to augment their social experience with little effort and at no cost, may be a tough environment for companies whose ultimate goal is making a buck, especially since so many companies are still trying to work with traditional ad models. Ultimately, the most successful applications are those whose business model, brand identity, and natural users match the culture and demographic on the network. As such, the top applications may not provide plug-and-play solutions for every brand hoping to enter Facebook. But the lessons they teach about the need for authenticity and relevancy are universal tenets for marketers in the Web 2.0 age.

Click here to view examples of Facebook's applications.

Link to Business Week Article

Facebook surfers cost their bosses billions

CANBERRA (Reuters Life!) - Workers surfing the Internet social networking site Facebook could be costing their employers billions of dollars in lost productivity, an analysis by an Internet security firm said on Monday. Facebook is the latest Internet networking craze, with more than 230,000 Australians already signed up and reports of more than 100 new users every hour.

Internet security company SurfControl looked at the phenomenon, and found Australian workers who keep a close watch on their Facebook profile page were costing their employers up to A$5 billion ($4 billion) a year.

"People love being there and telling people what they are doing right now, what their thoughts are right at this second," SurfControl chairman Richard Cullen told Australian radio.

"It's so interactive that people just get addicted to watching their Facebook groups all the time."

Facebook allows friends to keep in touch, post photos and monitor one another's moods and movements. It also enables people to meet others and form new social networks.

Cullen said his findings were based on a typical Facebook user, earning an average wage, spending an hour a day on line. He then calculated the cost to companies if one person in every organization spent an hour on Facebook instead of working.

"We got the extraordinary figure of A$5 billion," he said.

Cullen said banning Facebook from work computers was not necessarily the best way to combat time wasting, as the site encouraged socializing, which in turn made people happier to work longer hours.

($1=A$1.25)

Link to Reuters Article

Sophos Facebook ID Probe Finds Users Reveal Too Much

More than four of tenFacebook users (41%) agreed to become “friends” with the fictional Freddi Staur and allowed access to personal data, according to new research by Sophos into the risks of identity and information theft occurring through Facebook (via CNET News Blog).

Users often divulged personal information - such as email address, date of birth and phone number - to a complete stranger, greatly increasing their susceptibility to ID theft, Sophos said.

The Sophos “Facebook ID Probe” involved creating a fabricated Facebook profile, then sending out friend requests to randomly selected persons across the globe. Sophos set up a profile page for ‘Freddi Staur’ (an anagram of “ID Fraudster”), a small green plastic frog who divulged minimal personal information about himself. Sophos then sent out 200 friend requests.

Among the Sophos Facebook ID Probe findings:

• 87 of the 200 Facebook users contacted responded to Freddi, with 82 leaking personal information (41% of those approached).
• 72% of respondents divulged one or more email address.
• 84% of respondents listed their full date of birth.
• 87% of respondents provided details about their education or workplace.
• 78% of respondents listed their current address or location.
• 23% of respondents listed their current phone number.
• 26% of respondents provided their instant messaging screenname.
• Sophos also “poked”* another 100 random Facebook users to see whether it would elicit similar responses, allowing Freddi to access their details:However, just eight people responded, with only five revealing personal information.

“Freddi may look like a happy green frog that just wants to be friends, but actually he’s happy because he’s just encouraged 82 users to hand over their personal details on a plate,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

“While accepting friend requests is unlikely to result directly in theft, it is an enabler, giving cybercriminals many of the building blocks they need to spoof identities, to gain access to online user accounts, or potentially, to infiltrate their employers’ computer networks.”

In the majority of cases, Freddi was able to gain access to respondents’ photos of family and friends, information about likes/dislikes, hobbies, employer details and other personal facts, Sophos said. In addition, many users apparently also disclosed the names of their spouses or partners.

“What’s worrying is how easy it was for Freddi to go about his business. He now has enough information to create phishing emails or malware specifically targeted at individual users or businesses, to guess users’ passwords, impersonate them or even stalk them,” explained Cluley.

“It’s important to remember that Facebook’s privacy features go far beyond those of many competing social networking sites. This is about the human factor - people undoing all that good work through carelessness and being preoccupied with the kudos of having more Facebook friends than their peers, which could have a serious impact on business security, if accessed in the workplace.”

*”Poking” is a way for Facebook users to interact with one another. According to the Facebook website, it is a feature designed “without any specific purpose.” When a user is poked an icon appears on their Facebook homepage, with the option to “remove poke” or “poke back.” By choosing to poke back, the user allows the initial sender to view their profile information for the next seven days.

Link to Marketing Charts Article

Deal Puts VideoEgg on Facebook Apps

by Gavin O'Malley, Tuesday, Aug 14, 2007 6:00 AM ET

ONLINE VIDEO TECHNOLOGY COMPANY VIDEOEGG has reached a deal with Facebook to sell ads directly into applications developed by the popular social network's community. The move represents an effort by VideoEgg to expand its ad network, the Eggnetwork, which launched last year. "Aggregating dozens of application owners together in our network will give advertisers reach they need to go deep in any demographic," said Troy Young, chief marketing officer, VideoEgg. Early advertisers include Discovery Networks, Electronic Arts, Fox Searchlight, FX Channel, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures. VideoEgg is not alone in its access to Facebook's application developers. Three competing ad networks--Lookery, fbExchange and RockYou--presently vie for their attention. With the Eggnetwork, application providers on Facebook can expect to receive 60% of ad revenue earned, with ads presently selling at above $10 CPM. Larger application Facebook developers like Rock You, J. Squared Media, Graffitii, Renkoo and Flixster have already signed onto the Eggnetwork. "The Eggnetwork ad units work very well with the Facebook platform," said Jia Shen, chief technology officer and co-founder of Rock You, Inc., developer and publisher of Facebook applications and widgets. Founded in 2005, VideoEgg manages the Eggnetwork, along with offering clients opt-in ad technology that stands in contrast to unpopular pre-roll video advertising. "Our ad units bring targeted, invitation-based rich media experiences to social environments," said Young. Today, VideoEgg powers 680 million video plays per month, from 23 million unique users. Including more than 80 social networks, its better-known clients include AOL and Bebo. Video networks in general are booming, with U.S. online video ad expenditures expected to total $775 million in 2007--up 89% from last year, according to market research firm eMarketer. Still, that number only represents about 4% of the projected 2007 U.S. online ad spend of $19.5 billion. In April, WPP invested an unknown sum in VideoEgg with the intention of exploring its various ad-serving methods. Link to MediaPost Article

Pandora Spins Customized Facebook Radio Widget

Music recommendation provider Pandora is now pushing a Facebook widget, a move that closely follows the exit of a popular streaming radio application from the site. The movable Pandora player can be lodged into any Facebook profile page, and visitors can enjoy the customized channels. Users must have an active Pandora account to position the tailored stations. Once installed, interested listeners are sent to the Pandora destination to enjoy the streams.

Currently, the application add-on remains stealth, and less than 2,000 users have jumped on board. But social networking destinations are great at spreading good things, and that could lift awareness for Pandora considerably. Whether users ultimately subscribe to Pandora as a result remains unclear, though the widget is playing within a healthy, music-related sweet spot. Just last week, Facebook was forced to eliminate a streaming, third-party radio application based on infringement concerns.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Facebook enables advertisers to opt out

Facebook advertisers will be able to opt out of parts of the social networking website following the discovery that some campaigns were running close to content promoting the British National Party, the far-right political party.

Companies including Vodafone, Virgin Media and First Direct, the internet bank owned by HSBC, last week pulled Facebook campaigns after finding these were running next to a page for the BNP. They vowed not to return unless they had reassurances about where their ads appeared.

Facebook has now updated its system to enable advertisers to avoid appearing next to listings for some of the estimated 6 million user groups on its website.

The blocking feature, which is likely to be offered to advertisers internationally at a later date, will attempt to address marketers’ concerns about the unpredictable and relatively uncensored nature of some of the fast-growing site’s content. The US-based company is working on other ways of giving advertisers more control over which pages they are seen on.

The incident highlighted a risk of advertising on social network websites, which are nevertheless attractive to advertisers because they offer large audiences and innovative marketing formats. Most of the businesses had bought space “blind” from third-party sales houses which sell bundles of slots across many different websites, as there are currently no Facebook sales teams in the UK.

The advertisers were not aware of the BNP link until this was pointed out by media outlets including New Media Age, the UK trade magazine, and the BBC.

The BNP page was in the political groups section of the site which has grown quickly by allowing users to interact for free with friends and contacts, creating blogs or setting up communities of shared interest.

Facebook executives said the BNP page did not break any of the site’s terms of use which, among other things, forbids promotion of hate crimes.

But Owen Van Natta, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said it was one of “the pillars” of Facebook that users, including advertisers, could control where their information appeared.

Mr Van Natta said only a small number of advertisers had appeared on the BNP page and most of the brands and agencies consulted by the company had chosen to keep appearing in the groups’ section.

He said that the site did not “have an editorial function like a newspaper” but reflected the “reality of what is happening with the socialisation of the web”.

He added: “Most of our groups are in social interest or entertainment categories which can be very rich environments for advertisers.”

Link to Financial Times Article

Wal-Mart Taps into Facebook for Dorm Pimping

Wal-Mart has launched a sponsored Facebook group devoted to dorm room decoration, reports Silicon.com.

The Roommate Style Match group lets members enter their particular style preferences, which are then compared to their roommates'. Members then get a list of products Wal-Mart recommends and just happens to carry.

Wal-Mart has previously tried to launch its own in-house social network, which was closed shortly after its debut.

Link to Marketing VOX Article

Web networking boom blasts into the workplace

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - After years of socializing, Facebook and MySpace mean business. The sites, which started as a way to help people stay connected with friends, in the past year have begun catering to professionals, offering networking and advertising opportunities.

Some companies are embracing the trend, while others are trying to shut the Internet's virtual doors as firmly as possible.

Barbershop owners Erin Portman and her husband, Michael, of Austin, Texas, created a page on MySpace.com, the site owned by News Corp and especially popular with teens.

MySpace "friends" of Bird's Barbershop often post photos and comments about their haircuts on the music-filled MySpace page, with links back to their own personalized MySpace pages.

"We started collecting 'friends' before we were even open," Portman said. "I definitely think it has boosted our business." The shop now has more than 2,100 MySpace 'friends,' many of them customers.

MySpace rival Facebook.com, started up in 2004 and in 2006 opened registration to people with corporate e-mail addresses. Thousands of business networks and communities exist on the site among 32 million users, with much of the recent growth attributed to professionals.

Facebook says its fastest-growing demographic is people older than 25. It's chief executive is 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, who is also one of the founders.

While many businesses are using the sites, employees taking advantage of them during work hours are stirring up controversy.

More than two-thirds of London businesses have banned or limited employee access to the sites, says a straw poll commissioned by Britain's Evening Standard newspaper in July. The United States, the United Kingdom and Canada have the largest number of online networking users, according to Facebook.

Toronto prohibited its 40,000 municipal workers from using such Web pages three months ago, saying it distracts them.

"We want to ensure that city workers who are paid by the taxpayers are not wasting undue time on non work-related activities," said City of Toronto spokesman Brad Ross.

"NOT SAFE FOR WORK"

Many companies block inappropriate Web sites such as pornography from their computer servers. Some even monitor their employees' online activity.

Some networking sites allow users to post photos and videos, which may be deemed "NSFW" -- not safe for work -- on the Web.

But Jerald Jellison, a professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and an expert in change management and social relations, said companies should embrace networking.

"People who lead businesses are reluctant to acknowledge the extent to which hard-working professionals do other things besides strictly working," he said. "We're human beings. We socialize. It's going to go on whether you allow it or not."

People often meet other employees of their own firms through the sites, said Jellison, who argued that such connections could be used to share resources and increase productivity.

"If there is somebody who has experience dealing with clients in a particular company and I find someone else who has done business with this company, I could get information from him, which could help in terms of making a sale," he said.

International Business Machines Corp. has developed networking software designed for business clients to do just that.

"We tailor it to specifically help people organize their own activities," said IBM's Vice President of Emerging Technologies, Rod Smith. "The more you're isolated and not in the loop, it makes it tremendously hard to really define your work".

Link to Reuters Article

FACEBOOK BLINKS ON MUSIC APP

August 1, 2007 -- Red-hot social networking service Facebook has pulled the plug on a popular music application in a bid to avoid legal problems with the recording industry.

The third-party feature, called Audio, allowed users to upload music playlists that other users could listen to on a streaming basis, but not download. It wasn't licensed by labels and publishers.

Analysts called it a looming litigation and cost headache for the company.

Facebook did not return calls seeking comment.

While no lawsuits had been filed by the recording industry against the service, playlist swapping on Facebook didn't go unnoticed by the major labels. A source at one label alleged the company was engaging in "massive infringement."

Facebook's move comes as labels are moving aggressively to force Web 2.0 companies to share revenues from music-related audio and video offerings. MySpace, Grouper, Bolt and Imeem have all been sued or threatened with litigation by the major labels for not seeking proper licenses for ad-supported music and video services.

Whether or not Facebook brings back a similar music offering remains to be seen. With more than 26 million unique visitors in the U.S., according to ComScore, analysts said yesterday that the company is likely to come back with a music feature that ensures payment to record companies.

Link to New York Post Article

Facebook Rate Card Leaked To Blog: $10 CPM +

WANT TO SPONSOR A FACEBOOK page? It will cost you $10 a CPM plus $2 to $5 extra for targeting costs, according to a February rate card leaked to industry blog Valleywag this week.

According to the rate card, which Facebook refused to authenticate, marketers have to shell out a minimum of $50,000 for the prized sponsorships.

A "Homepage Sponsored Story" on Facebook draws a click-through rate "10-20x higher than banners," according to the rate card obtained by Valleywag.

Buying into a "Facebook Sponsored Group" requires marketers to commit at least $150,000 over three months. That would bank Facebook roughly $90 million dollars a year in sponsorships alone.

In accordance with those numbers, Jim Breyer, managing partner of Facebook investor Accel Partners, recently told attendees of Fortune's iMeme conference that the social network would take in well over $100 million this year.

(Breyer, a Facebook board member as well, also said the company is profitable and will post a positive EBITDA this year, according to press reports.)

Existing Facebook sponsors include Victoria's Secret, Dave Matthews Band, Apple, eBay, MTV, and Red Bull.

Facebook has grown three times as fast as MySpace in the past year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Seeing a massive influx of first-timers, Facebook U.S. visitor numbers reached 26.6 million in May--up a full 89% year-over-year and 3.6 million more than in April, according to comScore.

Worldwide, comScore reported, Facebook reached 47.2 million visitors in May--8.4 million more than in April, and with an average of 20.6 visits per user.

Last August, Facebook did a deal with Microsoft to place all banner ads and paid links on the site, follows closely on the heels of a similar partnership struck between MySpace and Google.

According to major research companies, Facebook's fortunes will only improve as inventory on social sites switches from remnant ads provided by ad networks to more lucrative rich media and video ads.

"Today, inventory on social sites is fulfilled largely through ad networks and contextual advertising, but as they mature, they will begin to use tactics such as behavioral targeting that allow for better monetization of their inventory," Jupiter Media analyst Emily Riley said in a recent report.

Industrywide, eMarketer estimated earlier this year that social ad spending will reach $865 million this year, and grow to $2.2 billion in 2010.

Link to MediaPost Article

Facebook Issues Site Stats

Facebook has more than 31 million active users, with an average of more than 100,000 registrations per day - and an average of 3% weekly growth - since January 2007, according to figures the social-networking site released this month (via Poynter Online’s E-Media Tidbits).

The number of active users has doubled since the site opened registration in Sept. 2006, according to the figures.

Some other data tidbits released by Facebook:

• More than half of Facebook users are not in college.
• The fastest-growing demographic is the 25+ age group.
• Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States*.
• Users spend an average of 20 minutes on the site daily*.
• The site is the No. 1 photo-sharing application on the web*.
• Photo application draws more than twice as much traffic as the next three sites combined*.
• Canada, with more than 3 million active users, has the most users outside of the US.
• The UK has the third-largest user-base, with more than 2 million active users.
• Over 1,800 applications have been built on the Facebook Platform.
• More than 75% of Facebook users have used at least one Facebook application.

The full set of data released is available via Facebook (pdf).

*Source: comScore Media Metrix

Link to Marketing Charts Article

Facebook Driving Traffic to Widget Publishers

A dramatic increase in traffic has resulted for publishers that have built and deployed widgets on the now-open Facebook platform, according to an analysis of Quantified Publishers* by Quantcast Corporation, an open internet ratings service.

“Just six weeks into Facebook’s open platform initiative, we are seeing striking results,” said Konrad Feldman, cofounder and CEO of Quantcast, which terms the phenomenon “The Facebook Effect.”

Since Facebook’s open platform initiative began on May 25, three leading widget publishers, each with multiple applications running on the Facebook platform, have seen significant growth in daily unique visitors, according to Quantcast data:

• Slide, the leading personal media network, has more than tripled its global reach in website traffic:
  • Slide grew domestic US daily unique visitors from approximately 312,000 to more than 1.1 million, an increase of 265%.
  • Slide grew global daily unique visitors from approximately 753,000 to more than 2.3 million, an increase of 207%.
• HOTorNOT, an early leader in social media, has doubled its global reach in website traffic:
  • HOTorNOT grew domestic US daily unique visitors from approximately 182,000 to more than 350,000, an increase of 98%.
  • HOTorNOT grew global daily unique visitors from approximately 289,000 to more than 722,000, an increase of 152%.
• RockYou, creator and distributor some of the most popular self-expression widgets, has more than tripled its global reach in website traffic:
  • RockYou grew domestic US daily unique visitors from approximately 145,000 to more than 521,000, an increase of 228%.
  • RockYou tripled its global reach, increasing global unique visitors from approximately 286,000 to more than 1.3 million, an increase of 339%.

These charts show the relative growth in daily unique visitors for domestic (US) and global audiences for the three sites:

*Note: Quantified publishers are those that have joined Quantcast’s Quantified Publisher program and added pixels to their web pages for direct measurement.

Link to Marketing Charts Article