MySpace
Picture © Dave Allen 2005 All rights reserved
Business Week’s cover story http://www.businessweek.com for the week of 12th December 05 reports, somewhat belatedly, on the phenomenal success of the networking web site MySpace.com
Of course when a giant media company like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation steps up to the plate and drops $580 million to purchase MySpace parent, Intermix Media, it ought to make the front pages. Teens and twentysomethings are flocking to MySpace whose members today number 40 million. For these young people, as Business Week reports, it’s “a way to establish their social identities. Here you can get a fast pass to the hip music scene, which carries a hefty amount of social currency offline.” These kids “log on so obsessively that MySpace ranked No. 15 on the entire U.S. internet in terms of page hits in October according to Nielsen/NetRatings.”
These teens and twentysomethings, unlike their parents, blur the distinctions between online and face-to-face interactions. They live comfortably in both worlds at once. Small wonder then that Coke, Apple Computer and Proctor & Gamble are experimenting with these networks to launch products. It’s not just teens and twentysomethings either. Although articles like this tend to focus on the young, the demographic of the networking sites seems to have no ceiling. A cursory browse through MySpace shows that there are people of all ages registered there.
If marketers are looking for America’s youth here they are - as reported by the Pew Internet & American Life Project - Share of 24 million U.S. teens (12 to 17) who:
Use the internet 87%
Instant Message 65%
Keep several IM sessions going at once 29%
Have more than 50 “buddies” on their list 29%
IM people in the same room 25%
Go online every day 44%
Clearly, sites like MySpace.com that allow users to create content are the best places to reach young people.
Meanwhile Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. reports - Spending on U.S. online advertising grew 55% in the third quarter. Traditional media grew 2.2%, *the slowest rate in eight quarters.*
Related networking sites:
http://wwwBuzz-oven.com
http://www.Facebook.com
http://www.ClassFace.com
http://www.PhotoBucket.com