Living in a digital world

The MySpace Race is on

Figures from Hitwise on share of UK social network visits in April 2007 confirm Facebook as the social network to watch as things hot up in the race to be top site.

With 12.82% UK market share in April Facebook currently holds third place here, behind the frontrunners Bebo (33.53%) and MySpace (33.77%) – with Bebo currently the fastest gainer of the two. However, the impact of Facebook lifting its students-only restriction back in September 2006 is now really being seen – with unique monthly users in the UK-alone growing from just 500k in October 2006 to 3.69m by the end of April 2007, according to a comScore study for MediaGuardian.co.uk.

Globally there’s still a big gap between Facebook with c25m members worldwide and MySpace with its 100m+. However, with the opening of the first UK Facebook office scheduled for August and plans to establish partnerships with more high-profile British brands, the gap in UK share might just close rather faster than expected.

June 7, 2007 Posted by Bryan | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Willkommen zum Zweiten Leben

Interesting research from comScore for anyone interested in the growth of Second Life. Their “comprehensive worldwide analysis of the active users in Second Life” confirms its growing international popularity, with Germany topping the poll in terms of active residents in March at 209k – just ahead of the US at 207k. UK residents added-up to 72k.

Overall, some 1.3m people were apparently active ‘in world’ in March 2007. Up almost 50% on January. 61% of these were from Europe, 19% from North America and 13% from Asia Pacific.

It’ll be interesting to watch how the world of virtual worlds develops over the rest of the year. Especially following Entropia Universe just being chosen over Second Life by the ‘Cyber Recreation Department’ of the Beijing Municipal People’s Government – to create a “cash-based virtual economy for China” capable of supporting up to 7 million concurrent users. Put in context, Second Life claims around 7 million members overall but simultaneous users currently rarely get above the 40k level.

Given the controversy over Google China and the Golden Shield Project, it’ll also be interesting to see quite how ‘free speech’ will be handled in the Chinese Entropia.

Anyway, until Entropia can offer me a Mrs. Tiggiwinkles charity hedgehog avatar I’m sticking with SL.

June 7, 2007 Posted by Bryan | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment