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Social Networking - Thursday, July 26, 2007

Wall Street Analyst Concerned That Facebook Is In MySpace's Grill

One of the most frequent themes among Internet commentators is what will become of MySpace given Facebook's rise. A number of looks at the data shows that MySpace continues to dominate but a number of people look at the data through Facebook's eyes and see that MySpace is set for a fall.

An analyst at Bear Stearns says he is concerned about the affect that MySpace's overshadowing by Facebook might have on the stock price at MySpace owner News Corp.

Myspace will need to respond,” says Bear Stearns, pointing to numbers showing that minutes per user for MySpace has flattened. Bear Steanrs says that the number of unique visitors and the number of page views among users aged 12-17 fell about 25% in the June quarter versus last year. “The data may suggest that Facebook is capturing more mindshare among this leading edge demo.” Bear Stearns says it doesn’t see any near-term revenue risk for Myspace, given low but improving monetization. “The risk is that the growing traction for Facebook could negatively impact sentiment on Myspace/NWS.”

On the flipside, PaidContent reports on MySpace's original content programs, which certainly are different from what Facebook is doing and taps into News Corp. TV assets.