Wow. This graphic compiled with data from an investment banker following GOOG suggests that facebook drives 20% of Google’s traffic. Facebook now boasts 275 million users, more than double that of myspace (appx. 125 million), and is growing at an over 150% annualized rate. Perhaps Twitter’s rejection of facebook’s all stock offer of $500M wasn’t well-played. Why is facebook soaring and myspace souring? As I have discussed in previous posts, social networks need to be simple as there is too much clutter on the web. Myspace lets users run amok and has become a classic example of tragedy of the commons, attracting users such as Ashley Alexandra Dupré (to my knowledge, she doesn’t have a facebook account, though she does have a fan page!). Facebook is continually trying to streamline its user experience, even in the face of criticism (see http://mashable.com/2009/03/22/facebook-redesign-revolt/). Today I ordered the recently published Stealing Myspace by Wall Street Journal’s tech editor Julia Angwin about what Myspace can learn from facebook. I look forward to reading Julia’s thoughts but I believe facebook’s edge is its controlled user experience which gives its users confidence in posting their sensitive personal information.
UPDATE: Michael Arrington agrees with me: “Someday, if they’re not careful, someone is going to do to Facebook what Facebook did to MySpace, who in turn did it to Friendster. Making users happy is a suckers game. Pushing the envelope is what makes you a winner.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/no-never-surrender-to-your-users-facebook/)
