Jun 30 2008
MySpace Knock-offs Trying to Spark Competition
As with any popular site that take off right away, MySpace has its share of knock-offs and other websites that are cashing in on the social networking concept that has evolved as a result of the younger set. MySpace presently has over 95 million users and the tracking service Hitwise has deemed it the “most visited domain” on the Internet. MySpace has ousted Yahoo Mail out of the top spot for visitors. While many young people enjoy MySpace for communicating with friends, and finding out lots of information about hit music and the hottest bands other websites are gaining in popularity as well. Four of the biggest knock-offs to MySpace include Facebook.com, vMix.com, Xanga.com and Whyville.net.
Facebook.com was a website that came out of Palo Alto, California and it got its start in February 2004. Facebook is gaining in popularity and presently boasts more than eight million members and fills the number two spot next to MySpace. ComScore ranks Facebook.com as the “seventh-most-trafficked website” on the Internet and according to Hitwise (the foremost tracking service on the web) Facebook has a market share of 7.7 percent. The majority of members at Facebook are students who come from 22,000 supported high schools as well as 2,200 supported colleges. Two thirds of the member’s of Facebook.com visit the website at least once daily if not more. Facebook.com alleges that it is the number one site to visit for photos and it has more than 1.5 million images added to the site on a day-to-day basis.
Another knock-off to MySpace that is sparking competition is vMix.com. This website originated in San Diego and had its launch in November 2005. The Nielsen/ NetRatings put vMix as number five among the social networking websites of its kind and since its inception vMix.com has shown consistent growth on a monthly basis that is in excess of 50 percent. Projecting into the near future, vMix.com expects to boast five million visitors every month by the end of December of this year. This website focuses to a large extent on both photos and short videos although it filters out all material it believes to be offensive or objectionable before it is posted to the website.
Xanga.com is only a few months old having start in April 2006 but it has quickly gained ground among young adults and has already become the number three social networking site of its kind. Xanga was developed in New York City and has approximately 27 million users across the globe and boasts a traffic share of 3.1 percent. Xanga actually dates back to 1999 when it went under a different domain name and was a website that was primarily for sharing both book and music reviews with likeminded individuals. Members can create their own web pages at Xanga and online diaries and blogs are a big part of the appeal of this website.
Launched in 1999, in a month unspecified, Whyville.net was created in Pasadena, California and presently has 1.8 million users. This website was developed by Caltech scientists who felt that the age group from 8 to 15 was unrepresented on the web and wanted to give this group of young people a place where they could communicate, play and learn with each other. Education is the number one focus of Whyville. It is estimated that approximately 60,000 new people sign up on a monthly basis.
All of these social networking sites just like MySpace allow users to create their own web page and include their online profile, photos, blogs and ability to send messages to other members. Most also allow to you add a certain amount of friends names to your web page. Although there is competition out there, some say it is healthy and will serve to keep MySpace on its toes. According to statistics compiled by Hitwise, at the end of the week of July 22, 81 percent of visits to online communities for social networking were to MySpace (which translates to 52 million visitors) while Facebook only received 7.7 5 of visits and was ranked at number two.
Thanks for noting Whyville’s launch in 1999, (april actually) but just curious, how is Whyville a Myspace knock off if Myspace launched in August 2003?
In fact, if you want to research an interesting article, you might want to look at the sites that have ‘informed themselves’ by observing Whyville — which was one of, if not the first virtual world (depending on your definition), was launched as one of the first totally browser-based 2 1/2 D worlds (now becoming very popular), invented bubble chat, user made avatars, free virtual world economies, and multiple other devices now common in the large and growing number of virtual worlds being generated (especially after Disney’s purchase of Club Penguin for fabulous sums of money).
In fact, one thing that one can say for sure is that myspace is emphatically NOT a whyville knockoff - For example, given our focus on younger children, Numedeon, the company that built Whyville, explicitly invested in the development of sophisticated community control software so that ‘our space’ was the kind of space where kids felt comfortable, and parents could rest assured — not a trivial task given that our kids are free to express themselves.
Also, just for the sake of accuracy, Whyville’s users explicitly don’t make their own websites - their representation in Whyville is much more complex than that, and Whyville currently has 3.6 million users.
But thanks for mentioning us — And have fun looking at the influence of WHyville on the growing virtual world landscape. I look forward to the article (soon could be a Ph.D. thesis, probably).
Jim Bower
Founder Whyville
CVO Numedeon Inc.