Social Snobbery In Social Media

Marshall Kirkpatrick asks if the hype surrounding Facebook is snobbery because of the people who use the social networking site, when MySpace continues to dominate the traffic numbers; according to HitWize, despite a 50% growth from Facebook, MySpace is at 72% of the social networking market, even though MySpace has slipped in the rankings, down from 79%, that's an impressive number. Mike suggests the demographic using Facebook is richer and has better education than Myspace users and hence the reason the technorati are ga-ga over Facebook.

My takeaway from all this is that although MySpace might be the 800 pound gorilla, the social networking site has a lot to do in terms of keeping users, an 8% decline in users is still a decline. The fall to 72% share of the market for MySpace indicates that even with an 8% decline in users, the overall number of people using social networking sites is growing. This is MySpace’s lead to lose. Watch out for better user interface design, better social interaction design, and new social networking sites that target different communities of consumers.