According to new data from comScore Inc., Twitter passed MySpace in traffic from unique users by a small margin last month. Twitter had nearly 96 million unique visitors in August, up 76% from the same period last year, comScore said. MySpace, meanwhile, dropped 17% during the same period, to 95 million unique visitors last month.
Keep in mind, this data does not account for the visits that Twitter receives from third-party applications and websites such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic. With this reasoning, Twitter’s actual reach might be higher than the numbers from comScore imply. A newly revamped Twitter website interface is hoping to bring those third-party users directly to Twitter.com which should increase the number of unique visitors the site receives now and in the future.
Also according to this data, Twitter has now become the third ranking social networking-type service in the world behind Facebook and Windows Live. Facebook grew by 54% to 598 million unique visitors in August, and Microsoft’s Windows Live Profile, which integrates with the company’s web-based email and other services, had more than 140 million visitors. Facebook has a strong-hold on the #1 social networking-type service in terms of traffic by unique users.
“Any comparisons between MySpace and other Internet services are irrelevant as MySpace’s mix of offerings is uniquely different and specifically focused on audiences under the age of 35,” said Rosabel Tao, a MySpace spokeswoman, in a statement.
Twitter is a social publishing and news discussion platform more than anything, while MySpace is attempting to position itself as a destination for young people to discover new music, movies and games. Both appeal to brands that want to reach new people, but they’re very different tools for very different kinds of brands.
Carolyn Penner, a Twitter spokeswoman said in a statement: “While we generally don’t comment on third-party statistics, the growth measured by others doesn’t surprise us. We’re seeing 370,000 new accounts a day.”
Twitter’s growth and milestone of passing MySpace is hoped to be used to woo marketers that could use the service to target relevant ads to consumers interested in real-time information about breaking events and other topics. Twitter has already cashed in on its numerous users with Promoted Tweets, and now it will reach out to businesses with the “Promoted Accounts” system, which allows companies to buy visibility among their target market’s “Who to Follow” suggestions.
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[source: Wall Street Journal, Mashable]
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