MySpace is the Driver, All Other Sites Are Destinations

If the Internet was a bus, MySpace would be the driver, and other Web sites would be stops that users are dropped off at. This is the basic idea behind a recent report by Hitwise. The report analyzes the traffic that big sites like MySpace and YouTube drive to other sites.

In September, MySpace held a whopping 81.92% of the total visits to the top 20 social networking sites, with an average session time of 30 minutes and 22 seconds. Facebook was second in line with 7.24% of the total visits during that month, with an average session time of 8 minutes and 17 seconds.

Xanga, Yahoo! 360, BlackPlanet.com, and Bebo were the only other social networking sites to have market shares of more than 1%.

Though MySpace is the clear king of this realm, the vassals underneath the site should see the king as somewhat of a friend. This is because according to Hitwise, 24% of the visits to the other social networking sites in the top 20 list come from MySpace.

MySpace does not discriminate against other sites. According to Hitwise, “the share of upstream traffic from MySpace for the Telecommunications category was 89% greater in September 2006 than it was in March 2006. In the same 6-month period, the share of upstream traffic from MySpace grew by 83% for the Shopping and Classifieds category, 77% for the Banks and Financial Institutions category, and 71% for the Travel category.”

Social networking sites are also friends to photo sharing sites such as Photobucket, Slide, and Imageshack. In September, “57% of upstream traffic to Photobucket came directly from MySpace. MySpace accounted for 51% of upstream traffic to Imageshack and 77% of upstream traffic to Slide,” said Hitwise.

YouTube seems to be most friendly with television-related sites, with 3.3% of traffic originating from the video sharing giant going to these sites during the week ended October 7, 2006. CartoonNetwork.com, ESPN, and the Disney Channel benefited the most, in that order.

The moral of the story? Advertisers looking to reach users of these two behemoths could have a wider range of options at their disposal than first imagined.

Source:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004262&src=article1_home