MySpace #1 US Destination Last Week

An anonymous reader writes "Hitwise is reporting that MySpace has reached the top, surpassing Yahoo! Mail as the most visited site on the internet for US users. Seeing a 4300% increase in visits in just two short years, this internet sensation has come quite a long ways. From the article: 'To put MySpace's growth in perspective, if we look back to July 2004 myspace.com represented only .1% of all Internet visits. This time last year myspace.com represented 1.9% of all Internet visits. With the week ending July 8, 2006 market share figure of 4.5% of all the US Internet visits.'"

Comments

In Unrelated News...

[cyranoVR]

In completely unrelated news, Yahoo! has announced that starting next month users of their free Yahoo! Mail service will have a new feature: pictures of scantly-clad 16 year-olds on their mail home page.

Re:In Unrelated News...

[Tsiangkun]

more than 36 hours have passed since the story was posted, I guess everyone forgot about it.
Good question about the bot traffic though. I know i get more spam from myspace than any other site i visit.

Re:In Unrelated News...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing says "I love you" like a spatula

And nothing says "I love you like a spatula."

Reminds me of this old joke

[rolfwind]

http://www.satirewire.com/news/0008/satire-fbiteen s.shtml

Re:Reminds me of this old joke

[cerberusss]

Copy/paste for the lazy masses:

SURVEY: MAJORITY OF WEB USERS ARE
FBI AGENTS POSING AS TEENAGE GIRLS
Survey Shows Evolving Web No Longer Dominated by Male Techies


NEW YORK, N.Y. (SatireWire.com) -- The Internet reached a demographic milestone this week as a new study revealed that for the first time, the majority of U.S. Internet users are FBI agents posing as teenage girls.

The report, by research firm Media Metrix, marks the first time the demographic group known as "males" has not been in the majority. Chart of FBI Undercover Agents as Percent of All Web Users

According to the survey, which tracked online usage from January through July, 50.4 percent of U.S. Web users -- or nearly 38 million -- are FBI agents posing as teenage girls. That's still below the percentage of FBI agents posing as teenage girls in the overall population, which according to U.S. Census figures is 55.7 percent. However, the report noted that FBI agents posing as teenage girls represent the fastest growing segment of Web users, increasing 185 percent in the past 12 months.

"This study reveals that the Internet has come of age as a practical medium and is no longer dominated by the male techie crowd," said Randall Stinson, editor of American Demographics magazine. `These newcomers are saying, 'The Internet is about more than being a geek. It's about shopping and staying in touch with family and posing as a little girl to apprehend geeks.'"

Web sites catering to teenage girls corroborated the findings. "At least half" of Gurl.com's 1.3 million unique monthly visitors are FBI agents posing as teenage girls, said Gurl.com spokesperson Helen Kattrall. "It's easy to tell the difference," she said. "Real teens chat with each other about boys and school and celebrities. But FBI agents posing as teenage girls are never interested in girl-talk. They tend to write things like, 'Hi, I'm Emily. I'm almost 13, and I'm looking for a father figure willing to cross state lines.'"

In a statement, the FBI disputed the study's findings and insisted its agents are not working on that many cases. However, the bureau conceded it cannot rule out the possibility that some agents are posing as teenage girls in their free time.

In other survey findings:

More than 60 percent of female respondents say cybersex is equivalent to infidelity, but a staggering 92 percent of FBI agents posing as teenage girls approve of cybersex as long as it leads to an arrest and conviction.

Nearly one third of pedophiles say they actually go to teen sites in hopes of meeting FBI agents.

Four out of five men say they watch women's gymnastics and figure skating for the athleticism. Nine out of ten women say they are lying.

Re:Reminds me of this old joke

[enitime]

I always hear it as:

The Internet: Where men are men, women are men, and children are federal agents.

So this means...

[Anonymous Coward]

that myspace.com is now offically the new sewer of the internet?

the downhill trend of quality of life continues

YESSZZ OMG OMG this is the rockz0rx

[ravenspear]

We hit NO. 1 peeps, this EEE the SHEET Yo, just ballin'

THES IS out the ass omg OMG I am speechless

LOng live EMO! peace and love to all. and BOOBIES!

:kisses:

yours,
xxxzzzMYsPACErUlEsmEyyyyzzzxxx

MySpace replacement

[Ruins]

Project Name: "A Life"
Project Goal: Obtain "A Life" and do something with it once obtained.
Probability of success:
(World Population - Number of people on MySpace) / World Population

Really?

[Comatose51]

I didn't realized that pedophiles and their victims make up such a significant portion of the Internet population. I kid, I kid.

Re:counting hits?

[d34thm0nk3y]

How do you obtain their numbers? Are they using DNS? Are they putting sniffers on all the core routers? Is this even possible to any degree of accuracy? It seems this junk science is probably about as reliable as Neilsen ratings...

And more importantly, does Netcraft confirm it?

Re:blwh

[gardyloo]

So, I was wrong.

      You must be new here. ;)

Prediction:

[John Garvin]

90% of the replies to this story will amount to "I believe I'm too cool for MySpace."

not a problem

[r00t]

The "single women all over who post their info online" are 45-year-old fat males.

The "children" are FBI agents.

Re:Not again

[tonsofpcs]

All it means is they got slashdotted in the past week....

Re:blwh

[uncle_riley]

To be fair, he only checked his facts after he had already posted

Re:blwh

[balloonhead]

Not really - these aren't real people causing hits.

You'll notice the timing of the traffic surge with recent terrorist event and subsequent legislation.

It's mostly just PATRIOT act research by the gummint to check out prospective employees.

Re:blwh

[gardyloo]

To be fair[...]

      Wow. That's two of you this evening!

Re:blwh

[Vo0k]

Seems you are depressed. You may want to visit that site, MySpace.com, where you will find many other depressed people with similar problems and be able to share your misery with them.

Darwinian...

[Vo0k]

people don't seem to understand how potentially dangerous this is. Consider the sheer volume of details some people (read: children) put on their myspace accounts. Parents SHOULD police this, but, all too often, they don't. The fact is that this service presents all too much possibility for children to get hurt. Consider also the single women all over who post their info online. Some of them realize that they shouldn't post that they live alone in an apartment in south-central LA, but others would very quickly post this sort of thing.

Law of Evolution at work. I think I just began hating that site a bit less.
Call me troll all you want, in ancient times these people would throw rocks at bears or play with scorpions. Nowadays they electrocute themselves with toasters and post their personal data to myspace. The gene pool profits.

And in other news suicide is up.

[PhilKenSebben]

If the Internet was a person, myspace would be a 2,000 pound tumor on it's brain. This is the worst of all possible sites to be #1 on my beloved internets. I have a higher regard for shock sites.

Re:"Seeing a 4300% increase in visits in just two.

[Jeff250]

In other news I made a site yesterday and I was the only visitor. Today there were 43 visitors.

That would only be an increase of 4200%.

Re:Narcissism

[dancingmad]

nor can everyone be Crichton.

God I hope not.

I just realized...

[thebigo195]

Myspace is Slashdot's Anti-Christ.

Re:What can we learn from this?

[owlnation]

How can we learn from this to make our sites better. Can we translate this type of activity to the 30+ crowd instead of just the teens?

I think the bad news is that the technology is fine. The problem is the people. I realized a while back that the Myspace website isn't what I don't like, it's the users. I'm just a grumpy old man I guess.

However, if anyone wants to build a "B Ark" offering free seats to Myspace users and then blast them all off into space, they would have my full support.

Re:blwh

[Rostis]

You must be new here. ;)

Re:blwh

[Mr. Underbridge]

Not really - these aren't real people causing hits. You'll notice the timing of the traffic surge with recent terrorist event and subsequent legislation. It's mostly just PATRIOT act research by the gummint to check out prospective employees.

I think you need to readjust your frequency there, Kenneth.

how about this

[2008]

You hire one of those scuzzy link farmer guys to ensure that any real Google results using your name are drowned out by a torrent of linkspam sites and newsposts advertising 0EM s0ftwar3.

Re:Having a unique name really sucks

[Mean Variance]

I like Nirvana and Douglas Adams and RPGs and arguing with people.

Really? I like Nirvana, Douglas Adams, and rocket propelled grenades too.