Where the Online Traffic is Going

vitaly.friedman writes "While growth is slowing at most top Internet sites, it is skyrocketing at sites focused on social networking, blogging and local information. The dramatic success of those Internet categories is apparent from a recent online-traffic analysis provided by market research firm ComScore Media Metrix, which examined visitor growth rates among the 50 top Web sites over the past year."

Comments

Basic trends

[liliafan]

There is a reason for this, google is a superior searchengine, putting aside the regular flamewars on 'evil or not' they offer a better service than their competitors, this is why they are continuing to grow, additionally basically everywhere you look you see something related to google these days, even the whole china upcry, all publicity is good publicity.

The reason for growth with the other sites is because of basic marketing treads they are cool, they are new, myspace has grown because they offered a unique service that people picked up on, blogging is also a major area of growth the fact that blogger.com is tied to google is a likely reason why they are going better than a lot of their competitors, as for wikipedia, it is a one stop shop for all your information needs that and it has a great google ranking it is an unsual day for me to perform a search on something contained in wikipedia and not have that entry returned on the first page.

If people only realized...

[ehaggis]

I don't think these sites would do as well if people realized the exposure and danger they risk by volunteering so much personal information on the internet. There is a great deal of education which should accompany this growth.

Re:If people only realized...

[Pudusplat]

Yes, there is some inherent danger in giving away personal information. But there's always risk, in everything. Most of the trouble with putting personal info on the web, at the moment, is that they use it for marketing purposes. Most people don't mind too much about that. They'll happily sign up for Club Savings cards at supermarkets, take surveys without second thought, and generally don't mind if their name is in some huge database with millions of others. They know it won't personally affect them to any large degree.

With the vast userbase of MySpace and Facebook, how often do you hear of malicious use of the users' information? You can don your tin foil hat if you must, but for the most part, society isn't out to get YOU . You're just not that important.

Of course, Identity theft is a whole different matter. Handing out Account Information, Passwords, and SS #'s is dangerous, and people should be educated on those matters, but for the average Joe, having their address published online, along with their interests and job details, isn't that big of a deal.

Re:If people only realized...

[DesertWolf0132]

This is true. Education is definately the key.

There is a high level of fear-mongering going on in the media. I have users come to me asking, "Should I block my child from Myspace? A reporter on the news last night said my kid is in grave danger using Myspace. Is he right?"

The problem with getting your technical info from *insert popular news show here* is they are rarely getting their info from real net savvy people. Add to that, fear makes good ratings. There is a risk of children seeing objectionable content. The truth is there is far more objectionable stuff on good old porn sites than there ever will be on Myspace or Blogger. I have both Blogger and Myspace accounts. I also have a six year old that I am preparing to enter the realm of the net. We have to teach kids that it is never OK to give out their real name, address, or phone number online to someone they have never met in real life. Parents, bookmark their blog and monitor their internet habits. You wouldn't let a child roam the streets without some guidance. Do the same for the internet.

At the same time, learn what these sites really are. They are tools for global communication with the possibility to elighten, expand horizons, or just blow a few hours reading funny stories. Children will find their way into the Blogsphere with or without help. If parents can just get their info from solid sources and pass it on to thier children we can make the Blogsphere safe and possibly educational.

Who am I kidding...Bloggers posting something educational...am I out of my mind...

Nothing here is surprising

[Pudusplat]

It seems reasonable to assume that useful sites will get lots of hits. Sites such as Mapquest and Wikipedia get hits, because they're very useful to quickly get information that used to require a lot of time and effort. They're simple examples of how amazingly useful the internet can be. The article then tries to give examples of how some "popular" brands are now not doing as well as new "trendy" sites:

Yahoo retains the largest audience in the United States, though its visitor growth slowed to about 5 percent last year.

Is this something else that is supposed to be news? Huge "super-sites", the website equivalents of multi-national corporations (Yahoo, Aol, MSN) have slower growth rates than new sites with much smaller userbases. 5% Growth in usage of Yahoo.com is still HUGE, when you look at the numbers. That's nearly 6 million more users, which is about 1/5 of Myspace's entire userbase!

This whole article seems to be stating the obvious. Trendy sites are growing quickly. Huge sites are growing not so quickly. Useful sites continue to grow at a steady (fast) rate. Is there something shocking, or newsworthy, mentioned here?

Re:And what's interesting

[symbolic]

What I find most interesting about this trend, is that "social" interaction carried out online is world-knowable. Anyone who wants to look at, use, or even track what you do online, can do so. It's not like going to a party for a drink and then leaving for the day- it's like going to a party and having everything you do etched in stone so that a nice little memento can haunt you forever.

It will be most interesting to see how much fallout those who participated in sites like MySpace will endure as a result.

It's the Fastest Growing thing out there! OMG!

[wealthychef]

The study measured relative growth rates. Small things grown at a larger percentage than smaller things. "Fastest growing" is a claim often used as a marketing tool by small organizations to sound impressive. If my website gets 2 hits per month and now goes to 10 hits/month, I've grown 500%! Wow!