Hitwise today announced that MySpace.com averaged 76.35 percent of all U.S. visits in 2007, among a custom category of 53 leading social networking websites. Facebook.com, Bebo.com and BlackPlanet.com received the next largest number of visits, as each received 12.57, 1.24 and .87 percent, respectively. The remaining 49 social networking websites in the custom category accounted for 8.97 percent of U.S. visits.

The Hitwise statistics on shares are based on averaging the monthly market share of U.S. visits from Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2007.

"MySpace and Facebook remain the market leaders among social networking websites, retaining a loyal base of users," said Heather Dougherty, director of research, Hitwise. "The continued popularity of social networking activities online will drive the interest of marketers seeking to target influential users to approve and advocate their products and services."

Total Visits

For December 2007, U.S. traffic to all the social networking websites increased four percent year-over-year. More specifically:

• MySpace.com received 72 percent of U.S. visits among the social networking category.
• Facebook.com received 12.57 percent of visits, increasing traffic 50 percent year-over-year.
• Bebo.com received 1.09 percent of visits.

MyYearbook experienced the largest gain in market share in December 2007, increasing 407 percent compared to December of the previous year. Facebook and Club Penguin followed, increasing 51 and 48 percent, respectively.

Returning traffic

In December 2007, MySpace received 95 percent of its share of traffic from returning visitors. Among the top five social networking websites by market share, Facebook and BlackPlanet.com followed with 93 and 89 percent, respectively, of traffic returning from the previous month.

Average time spent

In December 2007, the average time spent on Bebo led among the top five social networking websites with users spending an average of 30 minutes and 24 seconds on the website. Facebook experienced the largest growth in average time spent, increasing 100 percent in December 2007 to 19 minutes and 51 seconds from just under 10 minutes as compared to the same month in 2006.

About this market research

Contact Hitwise for more information.

Hitwise data is based on a custom category of 53 of the leading social networking websites ranked by market share of U.S. visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise defines a returning visitor is defined as a user that has visited the site in the past 30 days from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users.Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.

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