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A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009

Categories: Social Media Stats, Social Networking, Web UsagePosted on January 11th, 2009

If you’re seeking stats from 2008, I’ve compiled them on this similar post of 2008 social networking stats.

Stats are important –but on their own, they don’t tell us much
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 08) 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.

How I interpret stats
Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and interpretation, 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.


A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009
I’ll be updating this post throughout the year, bookmark it, and share it with others

 

All Social Networks

  • Techcrunch has listed out comscore’s numbers across multiple social networks, Sources: Techcrunch via Comscore, Jan 1, 2009
  • Compete has released stats in Feb, comments by Cnet. Unique Visitors, Total Visitors and rank information. Cnet, Feb 10, 2009
  • Nielsen Online shows that: Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity ahead of personal email, Member communities are visited by 67% of the global online population, time spent is growing at 3 times the overall internet rate, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time, PDF, Nielsen Online, March
  • Nielsen reports that Social Networks 68% more popular than email 65% (but not by much), Nielsen, Cnet, March 2009
  • Techcrunch has an interesting application that shows which social networks dominate by country, June 2009
  • Facebook

  • Facebook has some very limited stats on their own website, view here, Facebook, often updated
  • 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent—even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria. Facebook is used in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories. Source: Mark Zuckerberg, Jan 7, 2009
  • Facebook has 54.5 million monthly unique visitors, says Comscore, with a growth rate in the U.S. averaged 3.8% per month over the last year. Source, Comscore via Techncrunch, Jan 13, 2009
  • 175mm users, with 600k daily growth of users, with the fastest growing segment “45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.” Inside Facebook, Feb 15th, 2009.
  • Compare the dominant Facebook vs MySpace traffic, stickablilty, and engagement, Compete, Feb 27, 2009
  • Despite those that have over 100 friends, most only communicate with a smaller subset of friends, and the rest is broadcasting to others. Now there’s not enough data presented to see if if content actually can still spread across those that do not interact. Source originally from Facebook’s sociologist, Feb 2009
  • This graph from Compete data shows Facebook has more users than MySpace, note the ‘crossing of the streams’, Compete, March
  • Inside Facebook says: “the number of Americans over 35, 45, and 55 on Facebook is growing fast. In the last 60 days alone, the number of people over 35 has nearly doubled. Developers and marketers may want to think about how to serve this group of new users.” Inside Facebook, March
  • “Women over 55 remain the fastest growing group, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds.” Wired Magazine, March.
  • Facebook Ranks as Top Social Networking Site in the Majority of European Countries. Facebook Captures #1 Ranking in Spain for the First Time in February, comScore, April
  • Facebook dominates US visitors over MySpace: “Facebook pulled in 70.278 million unique visitors in the states, compared to MySpace’s 70.237 million, according to data released by ComScore. That made Facebook the most popular site in the U.S., in terms of visitors. Just a month earlier, Facebook had a little over 67 million U.S. visitors behind MySpace’s 70.9 million.” PC Mag,, June 16
  • Hi5

  • 60 million reported users, and Hi5 has introduced a gaming component. VentureBeat, Feb 5, 2009
  • LinkedIn

  • “the site’s traffic is up in the recession. It hit 36 million members last Monday and is adding them at a rate of about one member per second. According to ComScore, it’s gone from about 3.6 million unique monthly visitors a year ago to 7.7 million today, Adage, March 2
  • Microsoft: Live, Hotmail, Messenger

  • Number of active WL IDs: More than 500 million active Windows Live Ids. Number of Hotmail Users: More than 375 million active accounts worldwide. Number of Messenger Users: More than 320 million active accounts worldwide. As told to me by Microsoft in April
  • MySpace

  • 76 million members in MySpace US, with a U.S. growth rate of 0.8% per month Comscore via Techncrunch, Jan 13, 2009
  • “The average MySpace user now spends 266 minutes (4.4 hours) on the site every month; a 5% increase over last month and a +31% increase year over year. MySpace says its users spend nearly 100 minutes more per visitor than the closest competitor.” Social media bible (who cites a press release), Feb, 2009
  • Compare the dominant Facebook vs MySpace traffic, stickablilty, and engagement, (repeated from the Facebook category above) Compete, Feb 27, 2009
  • Facebook dominates US visitors over MySpace: “Facebook pulled in 70.278 million unique visitors in the states, compared to MySpace’s 70.237 million, according to data released by ComScore. That made Facebook the most popular site in the U.S., in terms of visitors. Just a month earlier, Facebook had a little over 67 million U.S. visitors behind MySpace’s 70.9 million.” PC Mag,, June 16
  • Twitter
    Having spent time with Ev and Biz, they don’t provide a lot of data and certainly not a total user count, as a result, we often have to estimate based on the following sources.

  • According to Compete, the growth rate for Twitter was 752%, for a total of 4.43 million unique visitors in December 2008, in the start of 2008, Twitter had only around 500,000 unique monthly visitors. Source: Mashable/Compete, Jan 9, 2009
  • Demographics of Twitter: Lots of stats here: 11% of online adults use Twitter or update their status online
  • Twitter users are mobile, less tethered by technology, Pew Research, Feb 12
  • Quantcast data on Twitter indicates that Twitter.com is a top 500 site that reaches over 4.1 million U.S. monthly people. The site attracts a more educated, slightly more female than male, young adult audience. Quantcast, March
  • Compete shows that Twitter is receiving 8million unique visitors in the month of March 2009. Compete (via Nick) March 10
  • Comscore data shows that “In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.” Comscore, March
  • Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month, Nielsen, March
  • “Worldwide visitors to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up an impressive 700+% vs. year ago. The past two months alone have seen worldwide visitors climb more than 5 million visitors. U.S. traffic growth has been just as dramatic, with Twitter reaching 4 million visitors in February, up more than 1,000% from a year ago.” Comscore, April
  • “-the average user has 126 followers; -only 20% of its traffic comes through the Twitter website; the other 80% (logically) comes from third-party programs on smartphones or computers. So if you’re looking at Twitter stats on your website, you’re probably underestimating that source of traffic by a factor of five; -an early peak test of the service came during President Obama’s inauguration in January, when more than 300 tweets per second were being added to the message queue.”Guardian UK (Quoting Twitter’s Engineer Weaver), June.
  • Xing

  • Xing has 6.5 million users, many of which have paid accounts.
  • 2008 Stats

  • Need more? I have stats compiled in 2008 for AdultFriendFinder, Bebo, Digg, MySpace, Hi5, and many others.

  • A note about sources:
    I’m simply collecting them in one spot unless I indicate so, these are not stats from my research. As a result, you’ll often see a discrepancy in numbers depending on 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.

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    60 Responses to “A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009”

    1. Jeremiah, thanks for the post and look forward to updates. Would love for someone to start to report on how many Twitter users post via the web, Tweetdeck, Twhirl, etc. Especially a split between mobile vs online updates. If you ever run across that info, please add to your post.


    2. Jeremiah, are these direct users or combined with API/RSS users access? My sources tell me that there is a very big difference for twitter for example. Maybe as much as double if you count the API hits.


    3. Vassil

      You meant the Twitter users. I don’t know for sure. I see a variety of numbers regarding Twitter, it’s very hard to find out the actual numbers.

      Twitter hasn’t released official numbers that I’ve seen yet, have you?


    4. twitter is still in the semi-early adopter stage. it will be fascinating to watch the way twitter continues to explode and make an impact on how we connect with friends/news/companies, etc….


    5. [...] on the web: Jeremiah Owyang has started keeping track of social media stats for 2009; like its predecessor tracking social media stats in 2008, the post will be updated as and when new [...]


    6. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 A good source if you want stats on social networks from Jeremiah Owyang, one of the most useful circulators of information and opinion out there (tags: statistics) [...]


    7. Thank you for compiling all of these Stats RE Social Networking / Social Media in one place for all of our quick and easy reference, Jeremiah! :)

      We appreciate your time and effort in doing this for and sharing this with all of us! :)

      Thank you again and Have a Great Day! :)


    8. Thanks Jeremiah…appreciate the work here…have you run across any modelling that speaks to splitting out North America…more directly referring to Canadian traffic and stats ? Cheers @MolsonFerg


    9. The update on twitter stats is especially useful, my last check in put them at 2-3 million.


    10. [...] ‘150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent—even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria. Facebook is used in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories. ‘ [Jeramiah Owyang] [...]


    11. [...] recently posted A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009. It’s not surprising that this is a topic of discussion with the rise of social media [...]


    12. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 - For those who like numbers: 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. [...]


    13. [...] it informs strategy. Every New Year seems to bring with it a bevy of new market research reports. Taking a cue from Jeremiah, here are some of the market research that I have read [...]


    14. [...] Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update [...]


    15. [...] Seeking stats for 2009? They are being compiled on this updated post. [...]


    16. Not sure if this has been covered yet, but here’s another great list of stats

      http://www.thefuturebuzz.com/2009/01/12/social-media-web-20-internet-numbers-stats/

      Thanks so much for collecting and sharing these numbers!


    17. [...] to recent ComScore stats, but the site is growing incredibly quickly. According to Compete, Twitter grew an astonishing 752% in 2008, from about 500,000 visitors per month to 4.43 million by December. There’s something [...]


    18. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 From Web Strategy by Jeremiah: Updated from Jeremy’s 2008 social networking stats. [...]


    19. [...] of millions of people engage in social network sites like Facebook (150 million +) and the demographics are skewing [...]


    20. I was wondering if you have any data on people who have multiple IDs on Facebook (usually more than four). Just checking around with my friends, it would appear that it could be a significant number. They obviously do this for a variety of reasons, but wouldn’t this significantly affect the numbers quoted?



    21. Posted by HH Tong on February 15th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
    22. [...] Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update [...]


    23. [...] of social networks, here are some random stats about [...]


    24. Hello,
      great analysis, can’t wait to see how the competition will continue :)
      Regards!
      Deu


    25. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 (Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research) Numbers don’t tell us much without insight and [...]


    26. Very helpful data! Just what I was looking for. Still working to prove to clients that social networks will drive customers to buy.


    27. Helen

      Will do, that’s been harder to prove.


    28. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 - Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester research has this collection of some of the most up to date stats from pretty much all the majore social networks.  The Twitter portion specifically is very eye-opening [...]


    29. Jeremiah:

      Thanks for collected these stats. I plan to use them in an upcoming webinar on the topic of social networking. I would like to stay connected as I have a commitment to create virtual citizens that collaborate and co-create. For me, it is the essential skill of our generation.


    30. Tracey! Thanks, that means a lot.


    31. [...] general information on social networking sites, check out A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 by Jeremiah Owyang. Owyang also also provides a kind of executive summary cum business strategy [...]


    32. [...] today: people buy less paper, but the hunger for news is bigger than ever. People are using social platforms on a daily basis, interacting with each other more than ever before. They like sharing and it doesn’t stop at [...]


    33. [...] is clear that social media is impacting the business world as documented in Jeremiah Owyang’s Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009. Social media is re-defining and expanding relationships in the global business [...]


    34. [...] Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it. Share This [...]


    35. [...] 10mm), compared to the social giants like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and MySpace (150-300mm), see my stats page to learn more. Even respected analyst firm Gartner suggests that the backlash may start as this microblogging [...]


    36. Hi Jeramiah -

      I wanted to use these stats as part of an e course I am creating - if I note this page as a source, would that be alright with you?

      Thanks tons

      Tracie Close


    37. Attribution and a link would be great Write Minded.


    38. [...] collection of Social Networking statistics, compiled by Jeremiah Owyang.  Feel free to check his posting out for additional statistics and links to the original sources (Posted January 2009).  Just to [...]


    39. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web… Thanks to chris Reed (tags: socialmedia research statistics socialnetworks forrester @jowyang) Posted by Rebecca McMichael Filed in Uncategorized No Comments » [...]


    40. [...] Owyang from Forrester has started a collection of various social media statistics from many of the top social networking sites such as Facebook and Hi5.  His post is updated [...]


    41. Did you see the recent eMarketer data on Twitter? From April 28, 2009:

      “eMarketer estimates there were roughly 6 million Twitter users in the US in 2008, or 3.8% of Internet users. eMarketer projects that the number of Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010, representing 10.8% of Internet users.

      comScore reported that Twitter.com drew 4 million unique visitors from home, work and college/university locations in February 2009, up from 340,000 a year earlier—a 1,086% increase. Nielsen Online reported 7 million unique visitors to Twitter.com during the month, up even higher—1,381%—from 475,000 the prior year.

      The Compete figures were higher for the month charted, and according to its latest figures, Twitter had over 14 million unique users in March 2009.”



    42. Posted by Erin on May 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
    43. [...] Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update [...]


    44. http://www.rapleaf.com/company_press_2008_10_28.html

      This is a site that looked at some political impacts social networking had on the recent election.



    45. Posted by Ron on May 11th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
    46. [...] A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009 « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media… - Social network stats and where/how to access them. Useful. [...]


    47. [...] I often get asked how Facebook could monetize, my take is that they are first focused on global growth they have aprox 200 million registered users (keep in mind that’s not the same as active) and need to perhaps double that amount to reach the population of larger websites (stats here). [...]


    48. What about tagged? the stupidest website in the world?



    49. Posted by love on June 5th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
    50. Thanks for compiling this info Jeremiah. Have you found info re when people are online using various social media? I came across some info re Twitter, but was wondering about the other sites. Thanks!


    51. [...] using Twitter, and its growth rate is around 1,382 (more than a thousand) percent per year. (See Web Strategy blog.) That’s an awful lot of tweets to read. So what you do is “follow” people. [...]


    52. [...] is now more popular than email. Jerimiah Owyang has a list of more relevant statistics over on this digest blog post. Executive summary: social networks are big, transformative in terms of how we communicate and [...]


    53. All my posts on Facebookstats are here: http://thekillerattitude.com/labels/facebookstats.html

      Oh, only one this year so far I see, and that post is on Sweden. Time for a global update soon I guess, stay tuned.. (You’ll find global numbers from past years further down)


    54. Check out the Flock stats in the second paragraph regarding useage, logins, and media consumption: http://www.flock.com/node/66815


    55. A new target date, the ‘Submission Target Product Launch Date’ has been added to the Actual Production Dates.

      The layout of this page changes if the submission is assigned to a Schedule Group after production has been initiated, to show two columns: Target and Actual Product Launch Data. For Commentaries, the Target data will initially show the information accumulated when requesting the commentary. For all other submissions, the Target date will show information accumulated during the production process, either manually before submission, or inherited from an assigned Schedule Group. Jeanette Llera



    56. Posted by Jeanette Llera on June 18th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
    57. @Helen Kennedy - Yes, I haven’t seen any STATS about how social networking increases sales (across the board) but there are plenty of good examples of companies (small and large) who are using social networking to leverage sales - I guess stats don’t give the answer because it depends HOW you do it, not IF you do it - social networking will not automatically lead to increased sales, but doing it well probably will.


    58. Great stats. I’m looking for South American stats on platforms and networks that are used or are from that region? Do you have breakdowns on Twitter / FaceBook / LinkedIn etc. for that region? I’ll keep looking and share them here when I compile them.

      Cheers,

      Shane Gibson


    59. Thank you for sharing. Student Talk, Students Social Network Community and Utility that Help Students Socialize Around the world for Teacher Education and Meet, Exchange and Share Essays, Graphic Designs, Presentations, PowerPoint Projects. Students Looking to Educate in School College University Organization Institute Association, Totally Educational.


    60. Look The first flash social network with dating for teens and young adults to adults. It even has a flash blog!

      TheOriginalChart(dot)host56(dot)com


    61. I think the median number of twitter followers would be more meaningful.

      Also, unique monthly visitors probably does capture all of their traffic, because it’s a rare user who interacts exclusively using clients. Certainly pageviews isn’t meaningful, but everything I’ve seen talks about number of users.


    62. [...] New Media and The Next Growth Story // The new media is growing at rapid pace, there are already hundreds of millions of users and millions of new users [...]


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