Jeremiah Owyang discusses how web tools and social media enable companies to connect with customers

Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008

November 19th, 2008 | Category: Social Networking, Web Usage

Stats on social networks are important, but I’m going to need your help in creating a community archive, can you submit stats as you find them?

I’m often asked, “What are the usage numbers for X social network” and I’ve received considerable traffic on my very old post (way back in Jan) of MySpace and Facebook stats, even months later. Decision makers, press, media, and users are hungry for numbers, so I’ll start to aggregate them as I see them

An industry analysts’ perspective on web measurement:
To be clear, my employer Forrester doesn’t provide specific numbers about social networks like Compete, Comscore, Nielsen or others, we conduct our own surveys on user/brand behavior, opinions, and technographics, so I’m often asked for these numbers by press. I’ll use this page as a library, and point clients, press, and media to it, so they’re armed.

Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and intrepreation, in fact, you’re going to see conflicting numbers of usage from many of the agencies and social networks themselves. The key is to look at trend movements, don’t focus on the specific numbers but the changes to them over time.

I put more weight on active unique users in the last 30 days vs overall registered, in fact, the actual active conversion rate will often range from 10-40% of actual users sticking around and using the social network, so don’t be fooled by puffed numbers.

No single metric is a good indicator, you have to evaluate the usage from multiple dimensions, so you also have to factor in what are users doing, time on site, interaction, and of course, did they end up buying, recommending products, or improving their lives.

Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008

All Social Networks

  • Overall growth, Unique Audience of Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, LInkedIn, MySpace and beyond, Oct 23, 2008, Nielsen Wire
  • Social Media Stats: This comprehensive wiki has additional data, Helen Lawrenece
  • Membership in social sites: Facebook, MySpace… and Classmates.com, Oct 2008, Rubicon Consulting
  • Extensive list of social networks by traffic, and google insights mentions, and demographics (but doesn’t state source), it’s best to use this comparatively, Dec 2008, Ignite Social Media

    • Social Technographics
    Understand how people use different social technologies –the first step before you determine which tools to use.

  • Social Technographics Profile Tool, Forrester Research
  • New 2008 Social Technographics data reveals rapid growth in adoption, Forrester Research

    • AdultFriendFinder

  • 59 million unique worldwide visitors per month according to comScore, For the nine months ended September 30, 2008, we averaged more than four million new member registrations on our websites each month, averaged over one million paying subscribers each month from whom we derived 77.2% of our internet revenues. Dec, 2008 IPO statements

    • Bebo

  • 40 million registered users, Nov 2008, from Bebo directly to me
  • Beth Kanter has an archive of stats she’s taken screenshots of, as well as this handy index list.

    • Digg

  • “Although the company claims it has 35 million unique users per month, independent researcher comScore (SCOR) says that Digg had 16.3 million users worldwide in October 2008, up 31% from last October’s user base of 12.4 million”, also “But according to Quantcast’s Web site, Digg.com claimed 21.7 million global users as of Nov. 30″, Dec 2008, Business Week

    • Facebook

  • Facebook usage skyrockets from election activity: Includes specific usage numbers, fans and supporters, Nov 5th, Source: Zdnet
  • Facebook 18 Million Unique Visitors in UK, top 5th overall web property, Sep-Aug 08, Source: Comscore
  • More than 120 million active users (does not indicate measure of active), Facebook is the 4th most-trafficked website in the world, More than 400,000 developers and entrepreneurs from over 160 countries, Over 52,000 applications are currently available on Facebook Platform, Nov 2008, from Facebook Stats Page
  • I was told by Mark Zuckerberg (face to face) that the total number of registered users is now 140mm, Dec, 2008
  • If the numbers are right, Facebook’s online users have grown by 30 million in the last four months, up from 90 million users in early July 2008. That means that Facebook is growing much faster than the 250,000 new users per day that the company had previously estimated, Nov 3, 2008, Epoch Times

    • Gather

  • Demographies: ages 25-54, median age is 42, 55% women, 1.2 milliion unique vistiors, 9 million pages views per month, 500k are registered, Dec 2008, as told to me by CEO Tom Gerace

    • Hi5

  • World’s fastest growing among the top-10 global social networks. Based on the June comScore Media Metrix worldwide figures, hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008 – more than twice the growth rate of any of the top 10 social networks. According to comScore, the popular site’s monthly unique visitors increased from 31.4 million in December 2007 to 56.4 million in June 2008 – an increase of 25 million monthly visitors. hi5’s October 2008 Worldwide daily average is: 505 million, July 2008 stats, as told to me by Adriana of Corp Comm of Hi5 team.

    • LinkedIn

  • Nearly 60% of LinkedIn users have high personal incomes and hold executive-level or consultant positions, Nov 10th, 2008, LinkedIn, Anderson Analytics.
  • LinkedIn demographics presentation from Aug, 2008, Erick of Techcrunch
  • Stats from CEO: 8 million to more than 30 million, while the staff has expanded from 60 to 370 employees, CEO alludes (but doesnt confirm nor deny) that revenues are $75 (million) to $100 million, The average age is 41 years old. The average household income is $109,000; 76 percent of them have a college degree or a graduate degree. It’s pretty evenly split between men and women, slightly more men. Forty-eight percent are outside the United States, from 07 to 2008. Nov, SFGate.

    • LiveJournal

  • LiveJournal is almost 10 years old and has 1.9 million active users (PDF), Dec, 2009

    • MySpace

  • MySpace has more than 110 million monthly active users around the globe, Jan 2008, emailed to me from press

    • Reunion

  • 32 Million Registered Members, and Growing. Jan, 2008, Reunion to me direct
  • Update, Nov 20, 2008: 50 million total registered members, Adding 1.6 million+ members monthly (mostly adults), Nearly 1 million active paying subscribers. Numbers direct from Kate Zentall of Reunion to me.

    • Second LIfe

  • Second Life provides real time stats: Residents Logged-In During Last 30 Days: 985,92 (out of 16 million total registered). Nov 18, 2008, Linden Site

    • Twitter

  • Global visitors to Twitter rose almost fivefold to 5.57 million in September from a year earlier. Nov 12, 2008, Comscore via BBC.
  • Locations (Cities) with the most tweets, Tokyo is the most popular city, Real TimeTwitter Local
  • Twitter stats by usage during week, as well as comparing heavy vs light users, May 15th, Compete (submitted by Nick)
  • HP Labs has conducted research on twitter, I’ve highlighted the average number of followers, friends, tweets, and active user base.
  • Twitter is dominated by newer users - 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008, An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day, 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers, 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all, Dec 08, State of the Twittersphere

    • WeeWorld

  • This virtual world/social network aimed at teens who also use IM has reported 25mm registered users, and 1million unique active visitors in last 30 days, as told to me in Nov 2008 on briefing call

    • Caveat: As I mentioned before, do not quote these numbers are from me, I’m simply collecting them in one spot, as you’ll see the accuracy will be debated depending on source to source.

    I need your help, as you find references to usage, visitors, or registered members numbers in articles or reports, please leave a comment with the URL.

    60 Comments so far

    1. Social Network Stats: Facebook, MySpace, Reunion (Jan, 2008) November 19th, 2008 6:36 am

      […] Social Network Stats: Facebook, MySpace, Reunion (Jan, 2008) January 09th, 2008 | Category: Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Web Industry, Web Usage Update Nov 2008: I’ve started a new list of data, with links to new sources on this page Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008. […]

    2. Matt November 19th, 2008 7:36 am

      i think it would be interesting to see stats from other social networks on participation and growth during the recent election cycle. the facebook stats in the above article are pretty fascinating. i’d love to see stats from networks targeting different demo/psychographics.

    3. Len Kendall November 19th, 2008 8:02 am

      Video:

      YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the United States:

      http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/world-s-second-largest-search-engine-starts-selling-ads

    4. Joe19G27 November 19th, 2008 8:11 am

      I read that the 1 billionth twitter message was posted just a few days ago.

      http://www.blogschmog.net/2008/11/11/a-billion-served/

    5. Mark Sylvester November 19th, 2008 9:14 am

      J,
      Would be also interested in what’s showing up as the long tail of social networks. Of course the big ones at the head (already reported here) are huge - but many of us are paying attention to the tail. Your thoughts? Or do they not matter?

    6. Word of Mobile…word gets around! » Blog Archive » Up to date social networking participation numbers from Jeremiah November 19th, 2008 12:35 pm

      […] To read the results click here. […]

    7. The latest numbers on social networks usage | BetaTales November 19th, 2008 2:48 pm

      […] list is inspired by the blog of web strategist Jeremiah Owyang, who has collected some of the useful reports in this […]

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      […] a link to social network traffic reports by Nielsen Wire, courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang.  These are all still growing like the emerging markets they are (fast, in other words), with […]

    9. links for 2008-11-19 at DeStructUred Blog November 19th, 2008 7:03 pm

      […] Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008 (tags: twitter trends socialnetworking socialnetwork socialmedia research statistics) […]

    10. Social networking stats | Community Metrics November 19th, 2008 8:34 pm

      […] Another quality post today from the Web Strategy Blog by Jeremiah on Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008 […]

    11. Nick Ellery November 19th, 2008 9:36 pm

      There’s some good stats on twitter usage in a post at the compete blog - http://blog.compete.com/2008/05/15/twitter-traffic-growth-usage-demographics/

    12. AndresCavelier.com » Jueves 20: Twitter, red que más crece; Movistar compite con iTunes en Colombia; ElConfidencial.es se dispara en España November 20th, 2008 7:10 am

      […] Hay toda clase de cifras sobre las redes sociales. Una de las mejores fuentes que he encontrado es este sitio. En cuanto a América Latina, esta es la información más […]

    13. jeremiah_owyang November 20th, 2008 7:36 am

      Nick

      Thanks, I added it, and credited and linked to you of course.

    14. azam November 20th, 2008 8:12 pm

      could u plz give some guidance when u have time (I sent msg on facebook), but if you can’t then its fine also.

    15. Nick Stamoulis November 21st, 2008 6:43 am

      It is no surprise that Facebook’s numbers skyrocketed with the election. Obama was all over the place on that thing. I couldn’t even keep up with the groups started around his name.

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      […] site usage in 2008 Here’s one to bookmark: Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang has created a mini-library of statistics relating to social networks usage in 2008, compiled from a variety of sources. The stats focus on […]

    17. Beth Kanter November 21st, 2008 3:07 pm

      OMG, this is something I’ve been tracking for a while (in a sort of haphazard way)

      I’ve been taking screen captures from reports and putting them into Flickr w/links to resports
      http://flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/sets/72157602972729222/

      And also been tracking free resources and stats related to nonprofits - here’s my top ten list.
      http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/09/nptech-summary.html

    18. The Day’s Delicious | Patchchord.com November 23rd, 2008 9:10 am

      […] Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008: Up-to-date usage stats for some of the most popular social networks sites. A good source to update […]

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      […] datos de la prestigiosa consultora Nielsen (a los que hemos llegado a través de Web Strategist), Twitter ha sido la red social de mayor crecimiento en los últimos 12 […]

    20. John Welsh November 23rd, 2008 10:46 am

      Hi Jeremiah

      Not sure my statistic is quite up there with those others but a figure in today’s London Sunday Times states that 185,000 have joined a Facebook group in the UK to support the abolition of the BBC license fee (another sroty).

      What I like about this is that British people who do not like the BBC license fee are generally older. So I think the figures for the Facebook group are not about the total (no doubt beaten many times) but the demographics.

    21. jeremiah_owyang November 23rd, 2008 11:02 am

      Thanks John

      Any stats about Facebook usage in UK as a single country?

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      […] Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008 Planning to do a presentation on Social media. Here is a collection of recent news reports and statistics ourtesy of Jeremiah Owyang. Here you will find data such as Overall growth, Unique Audience of Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, LInkedIn, MySpace and beyond. (tags: statistics socialmedia) […]

    26. DIGEST November 26th, 2008 6:00 am

      […] stats of all kinds, growth, revenue, demographics, website usage, and more on this page of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008. Bookmark it, and share it with others as I continue to update […]

    27. Darren Yan November 26th, 2008 8:03 am

      Hey Jeremiah,

      Great resource for those people like me who’s hungry for stats and numbers to validate social media. I hope to deep dive in these numbers and see the % of Asian participants in these networks. Specifically, do these networks meet the needs and aspirations of the rapidly Internet savvy Asian user?

    28. AndresCavelier.com » Estadísticas de redes sociales online en América Latina 2008 November 27th, 2008 6:34 am

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    32. John Welsh December 2nd, 2008 2:56 am

      Jeremiah - just got round (too much puppy watching!) to asking the question about Facebook usage in the UK of our LinkedIn group “The Future of Social Media”. I’ll let you know of the result or someone might link through to you and do so themselves.

      http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=661127&discussionID=623671&goback=%2Eana_661127_1228211004348_1%2Eanh_661127

      Cheers

    33. Shannon Kmak December 2nd, 2008 4:13 pm

      How about Delicious? TechCrunch said that they had 3 million users and about 100 million URLs bookmarked, but this is a year old.

      http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/06/exclusive-screen-shots-and-feature-overview-of-delicious-20-preview/

      Wikipedia says they have 5 million users and 150 bookmarked URLs.

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      […] Have you seen my collection of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008? Bookmark it, and share it with others as I continue to update […]

    35. John Welsh December 4th, 2008 2:22 pm

      Jeremiah - so finally I have your answer to Facebook use in the UK. It dates from 2007 but is really comprehensive.

      http://paulfwalsh.com/facebook-stats-for-the-uk/

      I asked a LinkedIn Group (The Future of Social Media) and got the answer back in 36 hours! All credit to Richard Goermaat (http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardgoemaat)who recommended the above blog.

      Cheers

    36. Stefano Maggi December 4th, 2008 4:05 pm

      Second Life: Is this stat right or maybe a digit is missing? 985,92 users seem very few for one month.

      “Second Life provides real time stats: Residents Logged-In During Last 30 Days: 985,92 (out of 16 million total registered).”

    37. Online Dating Insider Links December 2, 2008 | Ajulie.com December 5th, 2008 8:20 pm

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    40. mayechkar December 10th, 2008 9:28 pm

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      что же подарить любимому, другу, подруге - прикольное и со вкусом? Конечно футболку! Все размеры, более 10 000 надписей!
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    41. Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Dec 11, 2008 December 11th, 2008 8:31 am

      […] Networking Stats: Have you seen my collection of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008? Bookmark it, then share it with others as I continue to update […]

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    43. To reach 180 million people… « Brendan Mitchell December 18th, 2008 11:31 am

      […] here’s some other useful figures I’ve found No Comments Leave a Commenttrackback addressThere was an error with your comment, please try again. name (required)email (will not be published) (required)url […]

    44. Kristen Lindsey December 19th, 2008 11:54 am

      Great resource! Has anyone seen some good age demographics for social network growth? A recent discussion with clients indicates that the impression that only young people are out there using Facebook, MySpace, etc. seems to be sticky, but I have not seen stats that show active users growth by age.

    45. Susan Su December 19th, 2008 6:35 pm

      Jeremiah,

      Great stats, but where is hi5? hi5 is the #3 social network worldwide according to Comscore uniques, and is rarely mentioned in lists like these.

      As a compiler of such a list, I’d love to know why you think it’s so easy to overlook hi5.

    46. jeremiah_owyang December 19th, 2008 10:06 pm

      Susan

      I’m happy to add them, so please go get me some official links with demographics and stats and add them. I’ll review then add, I appreciate your passion, so thanks in advance.

    47. simonbaptist December 20th, 2008 1:56 am

      I see you have the numbers for Wee World - do you have any for Club Penguin?

    48. simonbaptist December 20th, 2008 2:06 am

      Found the answer (well some of it) on the Neilsen report you linked to.

      Club Penguin
      Sept. 2008 Unique Audience (in 000s)
      4,224

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    50. Susan Su December 22nd, 2008 4:17 pm

      Jeremiah,

      Took some digging, but here you go!

      Monthly uniques: 56.4 million
      Total registered users: 80 million

      http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2008/12/hi5_the_largest.php
      http://www.crunchbase.com/company/hi5
      http://www.hi5networks.com/

      Know any figures on other huge networks outside the U.S.?

    51. jeremiah_owyang December 22nd, 2008 5:25 pm

      Susan

      I received numbers from hi5 themselves thanks.

    52. Valerie Ferguson December 24th, 2008 11:06 am

      do you have figures for blackplanet.com?

    53. Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Dec 24, 2008 December 24th, 2008 1:30 pm

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    55. Evelyn So December 30th, 2008 2:20 am

      Thank you very much for spearheading this! Great list!

      Collecting SM stats is my Q1 plan - so please count me in as an active contributor.

    56. Evelyn So December 30th, 2008 2:20 am

      Thank you very much for spearheading this! Great list!

      Collecting SM stats is my Q1 plan - so please count me in as an active contributor.

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