These seem pretty accurate to me so I won’t bother to check the methodology … sometimes it really is just better to trust strangers on the internet:

A completely Unscientific (Yet Accurate) Look at Social Sites: (Hyperlinks aren’t working on this for some reason so this came from here: http://brainz.org/completely-unscientific-yet-accurate-look-social-sites/)

Jason Jhonson

There is an interesting article in the Sunday Times yesterday that talks about the motivations people have for using it – often so inanely – something that Twitter’s founder Biz Stone even has some difficulty explaining.  Its certainly not because kids today aren’t smart enough to write something worth reading – in fact, they are way smarter than many of  their parents who are reading articles like this trying to figure this thing out.  Basically, people are insecure and use disposable communication like Twitter to maintain some sense of self.  The explanatory bit of the article:

It’s a fair question. What kind of person shares information with the world the minute they get it? And just who are the “followers” willing to tune into this rolling news service of the ego?

The clinical psychologist Oliver James has his reservations. “Twittering stems from a lack of identity. It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”

“We are the most narcissistic age ever,” agrees Dr David Lewis, a cognitive neuropsychologist and director of research based at the University of Sussex. “Using Twitter suggests a level of insecurity whereby, unless people recognise you, you cease to exist. It may stave off insecurity in the short term, but it won’t cure it.”

So this (and, I would argue, much of online communication) is more about giving the communicator reassurance that they “exist”.  People want to know that, even for a second, people are thinking about them.  I’m not going to get too much into whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (but really, can it possibly be good?) but it certainly is a marker of our culture.  Hundreds of years ago, the winners and losers in life were clearly defined and separated from one another.   Now however, when everyone feels that it is their right and within their ability to “succeed” but they really don’t know how to go about it – there appears to be an overriding angst that seeps into communications with others and just shouts out for affirmation.

Feel free to wallow in my own brand of narcissism here

Jason Jhonson

Communication Evolution @ Yahoo! Video

Jason Jhonson

A couple of points on the metrics I’m using.  

1. Coming from Compete.com these are figures from United States browsers only.  This will explain how a website like Orkut, with huge audiences in Brazil and India, doesn’t even make it into the top 20 (its #21 actually).
2. Another issue with Compete.com is that they only measure web browser traffic – and do not capture any taffic that comes from other desktop applications of mobile devices.  This is most likely to negatively affect the traffic numbers of Twitter (although those figures are still quite good) because Twitter gets a significant portion of its activity from mobile and 3rd party desktop applications.
3. I’ve decided to use Monthly Visitors as the basis of comparison rather than Monthly Unique Visitors.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  First, several of the websites that rank high on the Monthly Unique Visitors ranking like #3 Classmates.com and #4 Reunion.com get a considerable boost in traffic from their ad buys but rank near the bottom in terms of engagement / unique visitor.  Therefore I thought it was more meaningful to recognize social networks seeing large organic growth (like Twitter and Ning) who aren’t getting their traffic by paying for it.

Okay … lets get started:

First, I think its well known that two social networks dominate the category  … and this is certainly backed up by the numbers.  Facebook (the new #1) and Myspace get nearly 83% of the visits to the top 20 sites.  That really is getting close to duopoly territory.  

In fact, when I was putting together the trend chart over the past year, I had to break the chart in two because Facebook and Myspace were so dominant, you couldn’t see any changes in #3 – 20.  So, the big story … Facebook passed Myspace in December and doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of giving up the #1 spot in the near future.  In fact, Facebook, with nearly 1.2 billion visits in January, has opened up a lead of over 380 million visits just two months after overtaking the top position.  To put that in perspective, Facebook’s lead, if it were a social network of its own, would rank #7.  Meanwhile, Myspace had just over 810 million visits in January – more than 80 million fewer than they had the year before:

As for the rest of the top 20, there are plenty of fascinating stories here as well and none of them bigger than Twitter.  One year ago Twitter would have ranked near the bottom of this list with just over 4 million visits but has seen steady massive growth to take the top position in Social Network not named Facebook or Myspace by receiving over 54 million visits in January.  To me, this more than explains the Fail Whale phenomenon.

In what is, to me at least, somewhat of a suprise – Flixster comes in at the #4 position by holding onto most of its massive traffic gains (perhaps due to “Aggressive Viral Marketing Practices” ) from the Summer of 2008 and receiving over 53 million visits.  Rounding out the top 5 is LinkedIn with just under 43 million visits in January – a near tripling of traffic from a year ago.

It is also interesting to have a look at the relative winners and losers of this group.  I’ve already mentioned the massive growth of both Twitter and Ning in the past year (ranking #1 and 2 respectively in visitor group among the top 20).  However, on the less fortunate side of the ledger is Yahoo360 and Bebo.  Both are the property of large media companies (Bebo had the good sense to wait until they were acquired by AOL to tank) and they rank #1 and 2 respectively in traffic loss – losing over 40% of their visitors each from a year ago.  

Finally, having a look at engagement.  There are a lot of figures that we could use to measure the levels of engagement for each of these sites – and I believe its a meaningful thing to measure because several of these sites get lots of visitors through active marketing programs but do a poor job of engaging the visitors when they get there.  I’ve decided to go with Visits / Unique Visitor.  This does sell short the types of social networks that people tend to leave open for extended periods of time and those that users tend to engage with through applications other than their browser but its a useful metric nonetheless. 

Facebook has the most unique visitors in the month of January and the most Visits per Unique Visitor … hence its massive lead over the rest of the Social Networking world.  Myspace, My Yearbook, Twitter and Tagged are also sites that do a great job at getting their users to come back several times each week on average.

On the other end, Classmates and Reunion, despite their massive advertising spend and, at the very least, questionable marketing practices do a poor job at getting anyone to come back (the aggressive collection of data and solicitation for subscriptions can’t help).  

Looking at year-on-year trends in this category, Facebook wins again – picking up 6.4 visits per unique since January 2008.  Tagged, Flixster and My Yearbook also are doing something right as they have each picked up over 4 visits per unique in that time.  On the opposite end of the spectrum is Bebo … who has lost over 2 visits per unique.

Thanks again to the good folks over at Compete.com for all the free data … 

Jason Jhonson

So, as best I can put together, the thinking goes like this:  Since most all of the Twitter traffic is coming through these third party services like Twitterific and Twittervision that can tailor the Twitter-experience to the specific needs of different users all over the world, it is just a matter of time (very short time likely) before these same services begin allowing you to post the same message to your Facebook status (perhaps pointing out the downside to naming your site some clever variation on the one site you support).

Then the question becomes – why do I bother reading the fact that you’re “going to the gym” or that you’re “feeling ill” in a different place than where I go to see the picture from the night before that caused your illness?

There will be a lot of people who defend Twitter’s ability to survive this but it will be very tough … especially considering the fact that they haven’t found a business model yet and a direct attack from a behemoth like Facebook will begin to make already scarce venture money all the more nervous.

That’s certainly not to say all is lost.  Twitter’s demise has been predicted due to other causes for some time now.  The Twitter experience is one that is very different from Facebook.  Facebook would have to make some sizable changes to their user-experience to replicate the newsfeed / chat-room feel that the user gets from the Twitter service.  Twitter is far more customizable and open to a unique customer experience than Facebook and their famously organized and always white walls.  But they are under attack – and the more casual Twitter user and the new users of the future are very much up for grabs.

Jason Jhonson

I will get deeper into my thoughts on the promise of Avatars (and why I never feel like they fulfill that promise) at some point in the near future but I saw something today that I thought was worth talking about.  A new web application launched in beta today called RocketOn which bills itself as:

… a venture-funded startup pioneering the development of parallel virtual worlds. Our goal is to create a new type of virtual world that spans the entire Internet. RocketOn allows you to take your avatar everywhere you go online. You can now play with friends, socialize and explore virtual spaces on any webpages. You can join in treasure hunts across the web, meet friends on your favorite sites, and find virtual goodies as you browse.

Check out the video here:

The idea of the web as a massive MMO spanning the Internet is interesting, but – to me – is fundamentally flawed.  Whatever novelty there might be in seeing my friends avatars (and their avatar’s pets?) strolling across my search results and eBay auctions to talk to me about whatever it is I’m looking at (or – more likely – just to talk to me about whatever they feel like talking about) is bound to get cumbersome after a very short time.  The target here seems to be younger kids (a similar application called Weblin appears aimed a bit older), who one might assume are more likely to be won over by the cuteness of it all.  

However, I just don’t believe this is going to work to any great degree.  As comfortable as people have become with multi-tasking, this is pushing it … and, what’s worse, its pushing it for no really good reason.  There are very cool Avatar chat rooms that are already miles ahead of these startups in terms of the quality of their Avatars and communication (see IMVU) and having a specific place where that communication happens just makes sense to most people.  Letting these Avatars run around on whatever web page you happen to be on results in an unnecessarily chaotic and somewhat pointless collision of behaviors.  What seems cute and novel at first becomes annoying and intrusive quickly.  

Although MMOs, the Internet, and IM have become so central to so many of our lives it does not necessarily mean that slamming them all together – with a cute avatar that I can buy clothes for – is going to be something many people want.

I do wish them luck and applaud the effort but I think we still have some work to do to fulfill the promise that so many feel Avatars can become.

Jason Jhonson

The major themes in here are around how people’s Avatars say interesting things about who they are and how technology can get in the way of real human connection (although simultaneous touching of a Coke bottle evidently fixes that).

Jason Jhonson

I have gathered here some examples of corporate ecards from this season and years past. 

AKQA – 2009

I like the concept. It took forever to load, perhaps it was just my connection.

American Greetings

Nice plug. 

Crew Creative

A great example of how it REALLY works. 

Hallmark

so sweeet….. a bit long and juvenile for my taste.  The message really does capture the trends of the holiday season. 

Razorfish

an idea we have seen before, but very nicely executed.  The community aspect is a nice touch, done in this smaller setting.  Could have been a nice opportunity to add facebook connect. 

Firstborn

They have 3 cards! Clearly they have the capacity for more work.  Fun stuff.

Snowed In

Is this an ecard?  I don’t know. It gave me a bit of a headache though!

Exopolis

This is from 2007, but very clever. Interactive, but still very simple to play with. Just right for a busy professional during the holiday season.

Thats all I have for now, but I am still bugging friends and colleagues for more ecards, so if you have any links, send them and I will update. 

-mangorn

Here is a view of the composition window.

Here is a view of the message view, with an open thread:

This is a full scale redesign of the application.  If you try it out, please post your comments here.  - Mangorn

• author was involved in creating this application and the content within the application.