MySpace still has a hefty traffic lead over Facebook in the U.S., so it was big news when ComScore released 2008 data that showed Facebook gaining quickly on MySpace in international traffic. According to the data, Facebook already gets more international page views than MySpace and is gaining quickly in unique visitors. In January, Facebook had 100.7 million unique international visitors compared to MySpace's 109.3 million; a difference of just 8% compared to a year ago when the difference was nearly 400%. While some other social networking tools dominate in specific international markets, no other platform comes close to the two U.S. giants in overall audience and reach.
To many, Facebook's international gains came as a surprise. MySpace had a head start getting into the global market, launching its first international site in Britain in April 2006 before rolling out sites in other European countries, generally with success. More recently, MySpace has begun launching in countries that are more difficult for U.S. companies to penetrate, including India, Russia and, this week, South Korea. In contrast, Facebook's first non-English site didn't launch until February 2008. MySpace still has more countries in which it is embedded in the local language -- there are 29 translated versions of MySpace specialized for 25 countries. Facebook is currently available in only four languages: English, Spanish, French and German. Facebook has also faced some widely publicized hiccups with its international strategy, including the failure to purchase all of its localized domain names, such as Facebook.fr.
But while MySpace plans and launches its international sites in a more traditional way -- setting up local offices, getting entrenched in the culture and then launching, -- Facebook is building out its foreign language versions with the help of its vast and committed user base. Instead of setting up an office and a staff before launching in new countries, Facebook is putting its audience to work with an online Facebook application that allows translation by the Facebook community. To participate, Facebook users add a Translation Application to their account that they can use to translate, review and vote on translations in their language. Once the language translations are completed and quality has been verified by the community, the Facebook site in the new language is launched for all Facebook users.
Facebook is currently working on 22 more language translations, and many hundreds of users have left suggestions about other languages that they would like to see translated -- and have volunteered to help with the work.
This savvy approach to new markets will be what wins the international audience for Facebook. In combination with the widely used Facebook Platform, which will allow international developers to build Facebook applications for local audiences, Facebook's international strategy is the better one. MySpace, with its less innovative international approach and still-new and largely untested developer's platform, will not be able to catch up.
MySpace does have one huge advantage in the U.S. market -- it completely dominates Facebook in music. This could be the one area in which MySpace is able to build out its international presence and counter Facebook in new markets. However, the recent announcement of MySpace Music and its support by three of the four major record labels also included the news that MySpace Music would not be rolling out internationally until issues concerning international rights were solved. This was the final nail in the coffin of MySpace's international hopes. The one area in which it had a chance will instead have the opposite effect of alienating its international users by making them an afterthought.
(Obviously, Facebook and MySpace are not the only social networks, and there are a large number of other social networks that are #1 in various countries, including Orkut in Brazil, Live Journal in Russia and Bebo in
Comments
Battling the Big Two may well be for "dominance" of the social networking market. But in much the same way that the giant automakers are now the underdogs, we could soon see a swing towards smaller, more focused social networks that have greater appeal to users now our eyes have been opened to the benefits of the medium.
I predict that as Facebook and MySpace get closer to saturation, people will look to niche networks that offer them more relevant information to their special interests of needs, such as specific networks for sports fans, small businesses etc. And where there is a more focused community, so it's easier for targetted advertising, the life blood of such sites once the press starts drying up.
I think THIS is the future and although it won't stop bring these two leviathans down, I think any chance of them making money for their initial investors will rapidly disappear.
Ian Hendry
http://www.wecando.biz
Great post. I also agree with Ian (from above comment). We will start to see more targeted social networking sites, which will likely to target demographics 30 yrs+. As people juggle with work, personal and family time, there will be less time to surf the net. Thus targeted social networking sites may seem more appealing. I still see Facebook has the main player in the near future. It now attracts 115 Million people per month, neck and neck with Myspace. With Facebook dominating the international market, I predict that Facebook will soon surpass Myspace with the number of site visitors.
Kadidid
www.kadidid.wordpress.com
Hello!
Your article was a good read, but clearly written for an American audience. Facebook dominating, or coming close to dominating, MySpace internationally is certainly not a surprise to me. Here in South Africa MySpace is a thing of the past; A distant afterthought to Facebook. FB completely dominates the 16 - 28 demograph, with nearly everyone I know on it. Even school kids, some as young as 14, are chosing Facebook over MySpace. I study Branding and Marketing and I remember being at my college when MySpace first hit the scene - for 6 months everyone was on it, messaging, blogging, listening to music etc - and then something changed. Everyone got bored of it. The initial *wow* factor wore off completely and instead we were inundated with spam, pornographic comments and superficial, superfluous BS that was just a waste of time (How many friends do *you* have?). In stepped Facebook and 2 years down the line everyone is still using it. I haven't checked my MySpace account in over 7 months, and why should I, it's probably just filled with spam and bands/models asking to be my friend.
In no offensive way I will say that America, to me, has always been slow on the up-take with regards to the latest technologies. I mean, I've been sending text messages for nearly 8 years now and only recently has texting/smsing become a big deal in the States. Perhaps it's because the corporations want to squeeze out as much money as they can from the American people before they wise up to it? I know the music industry does it by purposefully trying to promote American artists and virtually ignoring the massive international acts that pretty much dominate everywhere else. I mean how can a 18 year old not have heard of Muse? Come on, they are like the biggest band in the world (excluding America).
Eventually I do think MySpace's superficial trends such as the number of friends you have will wither and die down and people will come to see just how much more functional Facebook is. Sure Facebook has its own brand of unneccessary applications, but at least I know every person on my friends list...
MySpace is pretty dead over here in the UK. The younger generation all use Bebo (the ones still at school or college) and the older ones all use Facebook (the ones in university or in work). The one thing I do wish Facebook would do is focus more on music. When checking out a new band the first place I go now is MySpace and search for the artist there, even though I am not subscribed to MySpace anymore. As Matt said, spam was a big problem for MySpace. All I seem to get on Facebook is stupid app invites, but those are easy to put on ignore as the privacy system works well. Not to mention my MySpace getting phished. I have had my Facebook 2 years and never had a problem. It is not like I choose dumb passwords. Furthermore, I think News Corp knows more than enough about people without spying on them through MySpace as well.
If Facebook can replace email, IM etc all in one place with all your friends then it has the potential to stick around. They also need to continue working on their mobile site, because I use my iPhone Facebook App all the time now. If they made it that easy on all phones and the carriers made it free then I think a lot of people my age would use that to replace SMS as well? There is a lot of potential there. I hope Facebook goes about it in the right way.
I don't agree that is will go to niches. Sure some people will branch out into various niche markets, but the majority will stay with the general sites. For example, there are loads of niche channels on Sky and Cable, but most people still stick to the main 4 or so channels. People will go where everyone else is and where the content is. I actually think MySpace has improved since I last used it, but it is too little too late because absolutely no one logs in regularly, I would be better of talking to myself. Niches are probably bigger in America. Probably why Twitter is a big hit, although still very much with the geeks. Why take something such as Twitter which is basically Status Updates on Facebook? Why not do all things in one with Facebook? Just seems like an excuse for these technology superstars like Kevin Rose, Leo Laporte, Chris Pirillo etc to get their name in as many places as possible.
I think everything here seems very valid, the main problems mySpace face is the the transient changing nature of the average surfer. Or in other words boredom. So far it has done very well to survive.
Facebook is still young enough to have not faced that factor full on and time will tell. Personally I find facebook bland and it's apps overwhelming and irritating already so the only reason I keep with it is because everyone else does... The moment something better appears I'll be off.
Myspace on the other hand my survive, albeit in a smaller capacity if it is careful, the music-centric approach means it has a niche and thats something every company needs in the long run for when customers lose interest.
The question is what is facebooks niche and could it survive a new, more attractive, more cool alternative... I wonder
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