UK
Social Networks: MySpace, Bebo and Piczo in the
Lead
Hitwise
just posted their latest stats on the UK social
networking scene. The leaders have already
been reviewed here: MySpace, Bebo and Piczo. MySpace
is ranked first with 13% of the market, while Bebo
is second with 11.98%. Third place Piczo has 5.87%.
There’s been a lot of discussion recently over
whether Bebo is bigger than MySpace in the UK - Hitwise
shows that Bebo is ahead on pageviews, number of
searches (”bebo” vs “myspace”)
and average session duration, but it still lags MySpace
in terms of visits. However, Bebo is closing the
gap and will be ahead on all fronts by September
of this year. The data also suggests that users prefer
MySpace when it comes to sharing music, while Bebo
is used for connecting with school friends. Interestingly,
Second Life is also growing fast in the UK. Digg
is fairly popular, and YouTube and Wikipedia are
#1 in their categories.
In the US, meanwhile, MySpace is much stronger -
it has 45% market share. Unsurprisingly, the number
2 site in the US is Facebook, with 5.14% share. The
regional differences are probably due to network
effects - users go wherever their friends are. As
mentioned previously on Mashable, MySpace is making
a push into the UK and Europe this year, but I suspect
Bebo will come out top.
Article
continues below
Bebo Overtakes MySpace in the UK
Bebo,
the social network that’s been hot on
the heels of MySpace in the UK market, has now overtaken
MySpace in weekly visits, according to Hitwise. Both
sites suffered a dip at the start of the summer,
but the launch of Bebo Bands, Bebo’s new
music service, seems to have given a huge boost
to the
MySpace rival. For the week ending August 5th,
Bebo was the most visited social network in the
UK, and
its market share of visits has grown 17% in the
past two weeks. 1 in every 135 UK visits goes to
Bebo,
which is now the 11th most visited site on the
Internet.
Users
also stick around on Bebo for longer - the average
session time on Bebo is 28:58 minutes, while
on MySpace it’s 26:26 minutes. Another interesting
tidbit: Bebo is the number one social network in
New Zealand. Meanwhile, Xanga leads in Hong Kong,
and Friendster leads in Singapore. MySpace maintains
its lead in the US and Australia.
Bebo
is far less customizable than MySpace - there’s
no Bebo equivalent of MySpace layouts, since users
must choose between a selection of pre-made “skins”.
Companies even create “sponsored skins” to
advertise their products. Users also have blogs,
polls and whiteboards. Bebo doesn’t have a
direct competitor to MySpace Video, but they do have
a “Flash box” where users can upload
videos via VideoEgg or insert clips from YouTube.
Nonetheless, there doesn’t seem to be any way
to insert html code, which rules out 3rd party development.
Bebo’s advantage is that they have network
effect in the UK market: if all your friends are
on Bebo, why use MySpace?
In
related news, there are rumors circulating that
Viacom is in talks to buy Bebo. But since we’ve
already seen (inaccurate) rumors of a Bebo acquisition
by BT, it’s probably best to treat this as
speculation.
Bebo
Turns Down £300M
Bebo,
the popular social network, has reportedly turned
down a £300 million ($552 million) acquisition
offer from British Telecom. Bebo demanded more than
$1 billion for the company, which is massively popular
in the UK market. The news follows rumors in March
that Facebook had turned down an offer of $750 million.
Bebo
is probably wise to demand more - the site is growing
quickly and the network effect has kicked
in. In the UK market, Bebo is ahead of MySpace on
pageviews and session times, but behind in terms
of marketshare (although they’re catching up
quickly). What’s more, UK searches for “bebo” exceed
those for “myspace”. The other big players
in the UK market are Piczo and MSN spaces (soon to
be Windows Live Spaces), which rank third and fourth
(see UK Social Networks).
