Online teen hangout MySpace.com ranked as the No. 1 U.S. Web site last week, displacing Yahoo Inc.’s top-rated e-mail gateway and Google Inc.’s search site, Internet tracking firm Hitwise said on Tuesday.

News Corp.’s MySpace accounted for 4.46 percent of all U.S. Internet visits for the week ending July 8, pushing it past Yahoo Mail for the first time and outpacing the home pages for Yahoo, Google and Microsoft’s MSN Hotmail.

Is this scary or what?

MySpace, which dominates social networking on the Web, also gained share in June from other sites that aim to create virtual communities online for sharing music, photos or other interests, Hitwise said.

MySpace captured nearly 80 percent of visits to online social networking sites, up from 76 percent in April. A distant second was FaceBook at 7.6 percent.

Don’t underestimate the power of sex!



  1. Mark D. VandenBerg says:

    Does anybody else see these sites as a sure sign the apocalypse is truly upon us?

  2. Raff says:

    Personally I see it as an easy tool to market to teens and twenty-somethings.

  3. Anon says:

    Geez, we must be 10 or 20 Apocalypses deep by now. We’re just living in the post-A manifestation now.

  4. Jase says:

    I think MySpace’s visibility has been hugely boosted by the 2-3 times a week special reports that many local news stations are doing about the dangers it presents to kids. I suspect this, along with national coverage, the news reports about musical artists who’ve been signed off MySpace and such has led to it becoming pretty much -the- website to visit at the moment.

    The hits will likely drop off once “Half-Naked Teenage Girls Hooking Up with Old Men for Sex” stories move off the general interest table.

  5. OhForTheLoveOf says:

    Sign of the Apocolypse? No.

    Sign that post-web bubble there is still money to be made online? Yes.

    Of course sexual predator stories are blown way out of proportion and most MySpace pages are pretty annoying. Personally, I hate the design of MySpace. But I cannot deny that, at least right now, if you are interested in marketing to youth, MySpace is essential to your game plan.

  6. Horny_Old_Fart says:

    Whoa!

    #4 – you said, ‘Half-Naked Teenage Girls Hooking Up with Old Men for Sex’

    I didn’t know that was on there — put me down for a user account!

    Umm, that was a joke, kids!

  7. woktiny says:

    if they are counting hits, then myspace wins because it takes 4.3 page views to accomplish anything.

    1. arrive at profile
    2. go to user’s picture index
    3. click to view a picture
    4. click to add a comment
    5. fill in form, click submit
    6. view preview and click to confirm.

    oh, and if we are post-A, and we are not in heaven, then this must be…

  8. Milo says:

    Eideard et al. All you need is a pair of white pants that come up to your armpits and show off your black socks.

    HEY YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!

  9. RTaylor says:

    If you need a better reason to give up on the US I have two words, Jerry Springer. Kids will always congregate somewhere. They have to show up at the same place, in the same clothes, doing the same things, so they can proclaim their uniqueness.

  10. GregAllen says:

    MySpace banned in my country so I’ve never seen it. ! So is Flikr, so I often miss photos on blogs. Welcome to the future of the web.

  11. James Hill says:

    You guys are giving a lot of credit to something that can be summed up in one word: fad.

  12. John Wofford says:

    Well, first off, ya got ya kids, and they’re just hangin’. Then there are the music freaks, who will listen to anything that’s free. Then there are the marketers, desperately trolling for something to sell. Then ya got the old guys looking for young skin, and who says there isn’t an old lady or two logging on for kicks. Then how about the parents that fire up their families only computer to discover that junior has made something other than nice the default homepage. And yeah, they get a lot of press, but where will they be in six months?


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