Facebook most-visited social networking website

Thursday 12th February, 07:17 AM JST

SAN FRANCISCO —

Compete.com has crowned Facebook the most popular social networking website, saying it racked-up nearly 1.2 billion visits in January.

The Internet-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that show MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the past year while micro-blogging service Twitter catapulted to third place from 22nd.

News Corp-owned MySpace saw approximately 810 million visits in January, while Twitter was visited 54.2 million times, according to Compete.

“No surprise here,” a Compete reader using the online name Bauer said in a comment viewable Wednesday at a chat forum at the U.S. firm’s website.

“Facebook has evolved much better and always has something new to offer. I don’t get Twitter though, I don’t think people care to read live updates on what percentage of my burger I’ve eaten.”

The number of visitors to social-networking websites and the amount of time they dwell there are considered key indicators of how well Internet services are doing.

Facebook and Twitter have registered increases in both categories while visits and time spent at MySpace have stagnated or slid during the course of the past year, according to Compete.

“MySpace is still the clear number two player in the big categories, but its trends in some key areas aren’t quite so dominating,” Andy Kazeniac of Compete wrote in an online posting discussing the rankings.

“At least in those areas, they could be looking up at more than Facebook soon.”

Flixster, Linkedin, and Tagged were ranked fourth through sixth places respectively, each gaining in popularity from January of 2008.

Wire reports

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Latest 15 of 18 Total Comments Show All

soldave at 10:51 AM JST - 12th February

Surely Mixi must get a mention this is JAPAN Today, after all.
kenchan at 11:01 AM JST - 12th February

surely the article should at least have tried to discuss the status of facebook in japan.
ogtob at 11:15 AM JST - 12th February

I am surprised JT doesn't have link at the bottom of each article so people can comment about their articles in facebook. This would draw more traffic to this site.

Moderator: We have had that function for many months. You'll see it if you click Share This under each story.
Richard_III at 11:20 AM JST - 12th February

Myspace is very good for checking out new music by my favourite artists. As a social interaction tool it is very poor though. Facebook can be quite interesting, especially finding old schoolfriends and photos of old flames.

Many people are spending too much time on it though and relate every tiny mundane detail about their lives. That can be pretty boring, like Twitter.
jonobugs at 12:05 PM JST - 12th February

The biggest annoying thing about Facebook is that EVERY module or part of facebook is 3rd party and requires you to okay the information. It feels like every time you say 'okay' another person has access to your information. I constantly get requests from my family or friends to upload a new module and it's all garbage. I don't like Facebook, but everyone I know uses it...
Tahoochi at 12:34 PM JST - 12th February

I wish facebook would drop all of the annoying modules too, but it's admittedly a good way to keep in touch with people if you're a long ways from them.
kanadamanada at 12:45 PM JST - 12th February

I'm not vain enough to think anyone who went to school with me in grade 6 wants to know how I'm doing now. My friends all know how to contact me. What does "friendship" mean if you have 356 "friends" on your facebook list?
kenchan at 09:14 PM JST - 12th February

kanadamanada> Aside from the numbers game that you mention (I agree that some people use it as a game)...facebook is just another communications tools...no different to a phone, email, forums (like JT)....it just opens up avenues that wasn't available before. It is as good as people want to make of it...you are just missing out on another communications form thats all. btw peoples lives move/change alot as time goes by but we can still treasure some friendships...why is that a bad thing?
kanadamanada at 02:21 AM JST - 13th February

Kenchan, I have email and a phone. I see no need for facebook in my life, whatsoever. The fact is that it is quite different from phone, email and forums in that it pretends to be linking "friends". As I mentioned before, my friends know how to contact me - the ones who don't are not my friends.
airrunwesker at 02:39 AM JST - 13th February

Try joining three pro-Israel groups! I did that, three days later I had my account disabled! Facebook also somehow allowed other users to become adminstrators of groups I created, change my privacy setting, and post very racist comments!
kenchan at 07:40 AM JST - 13th February

kanadamanada> people say the same thing every generation a new form of communications arrives and disturbs society...people were unsure of emails and chat rooms at the beggining etc, but they are now accepted norms....I'm sure people were unsure of phones when they first got introduced to the masses...I guess people said things like "why do I need to talk down this MACHINE when I can just go visit my friend in real life"....see what I am getting at? Open your view abit as "linking" people is no different to having your friends phone/email details in your address book...the important part is what you do with this form of communication from there-on in.
cwhite at 10:23 PM JST - 13th February

garbage in garbage out
kenchan at 09:02 AM JST - 14th February

you get what you put in....up to you as an individual
bcbrownboy at 06:42 AM JST - 16th February

Living in the country in Japan, FACEBOOK is my social network. Of course I have the J-network, but it doesn't totally satisfy. MySpace is idle, and I never check it.
Maff at 09:01 PM JST - 17th February

I despise Facebook because I'm addicted to it. I work freelance from home but spend hours on FB insead of working, resulting in a huge amount of lost income. I'm thinking about suing them. They don't tell you you can get hooked when you sign up.