MySpace versus Facebook: Analysis of both traffic and ad revenue, using Google Trends
(above, Facebook beating MySpace in Australia with the crossover at Oct 07) — MySpace versus Facebook — As some of you know, I've previously written about the MySpace versus Facebook topic, both a year ago in the post Wanna bet?
Context & Ripple Effects
By mid-2008 the MySpace-versus-Facebook race had become a running argument measured in dueling metrics. Traffic trackers still showed MySpace ahead — one January 2008 ReadWriteWeb piece insisted MySpace was 'still kicking Facebook's ass' — while page-view data told a different story, with Facebook climbing to third and MySpace down nearly 20% by late 2007. This analysis adds a third lens: Google Trends search interest, which already showed Facebook crossing over MySpace in Australia around October 2007, consistent with reporting that MySpace had slipped to middle-of-the-road as Facebook surged. The ad-revenue question remained open, with MySpace's targeting advantage seen as its key defense.
First-order effects
- The analysis reframes the rivalry from a traffic fight into a leading-indicator question: search-interest crossovers (like Australia's October 2007 flip) suggest Facebook's momentum is broadening market-by-market even where MySpace retains raw traffic leadership.
- MySpace's remaining advantage narrows to monetization — its ad-targeting capabilities were viewed as what Facebook would eventually match, making ad revenue the next battleground after audience.
Second-order effects
- If search trends lead traffic and traffic leads revenue, advertisers and media buyers face pressure to shift budgets toward Facebook before the official numbers confirm the crossover — accelerating the very decline being projected.
- Competing measurement sources (Google Trends, Compete, ad projections) force the industry to argue about methodology rather than facts, since each dataset tells a different story about who is winning.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward social network dominance being decided by engagement quality and advertiser tooling rather than raw registered users — a template later confirmed when projections showed Facebook's ad revenue overtaking MySpace's.
- It foreshadows the winner-take-most structure of social advertising, where a single platform consolidates the bulk of ad spend once perceived momentum tips.
The trend: This is an early data point in the consolidation of social networking into a single dominant ad platform, where momentum indicators — not incumbent scale — predict which network captures the market's advertising value.