September Traffic Drops for MySpace, Facebook and YouTube

Visitors to social network heavyweight MySpace dropped to 47.2 million in September from 49.2 million in August, a 4 percent decline, per Nielsen//NetRatings. The decrease was more striking at YouTube, which Google just agreed to acquire for $1.65 billion [Adweek Online, Oct. 9]. Compared to August, traffic in September fell 19 percent to 27.6 million.

Corinna Chang, a Nielsen//NetRatings data analyst, said the traffic dips could be attributed to the start of the school year, when "activities like blogging and video searching would experience a decrease as students are focusing on schoolwork and not leisure activities." She noted that overall Web traffic slipped in September.

Social networks have enjoyed a tremendous run in 2006. Since the start of the year, MySpace traffic has grown 65 percent and YouTube's has increased eightfold. The hefty price paid by Google for YouTube was attributed to the buyer's confidence that it could effectively integrate advertising into the site's existing user-friendly features.

While Nielsen//NetRatings detected a decline in the unique visitors to these sites, it reports they continue to keep visitors for long periods. Average time spent by MySpace visitors in September was just over two hours, a slight increase from August. On YouTube, visitors stayed 33 minutes, up from 26 minutes the previous month.