Twitter passes Bebo and Linkedin; MySpace heads south
Though you may think that Twitter gets, oh, far too much attention, the reality is that this is something that is growing fast. Damn fast. So fast that it has recently left not only the New York Times but also Digg - remember Digg? …
Context & Ripple Effects
The climb has been building all spring: Nielsen flagged the velocity in its March growth report, and ComScore's numbers two days ago put it on paper — US unique visitors up 83% between March and April alone. What changed this week is that the growth stopped being a curiosity and started reordering the rankings itself.
There is history here for both ends of the chart. Bebo was once the riser, having been framed back in 2007 as the service leapfrogging MySpace across the pond; now Bebo sits below Twitter in the traffic tables alongside LinkedIn, Digg and even the New York Times. Meanwhile the week hasn't been all upside for Twitter — its removal of a beloved feature a few days earlier drew heavy user backlash and hostile press coverage, a reminder that hypergrowth and community management are colliding.
First-order effects
- Twitter's ranking surge moves it past Bebo and LinkedIn outright, meaning advertisers, press and potential acquirers now benchmark it against the top tier rather than the second tier of social services.
Second-order effects
- Bebo and LinkedIn face pressure to show comparable momentum or cede the 'fast-growing social platform' narrative that drives coverage and deal interest, while MySpace's continued slide makes it the cautionary baseline every rival gets measured against.
Third-order effects
- If rank churn at this speed becomes routine, traffic-measurement firms like ComScore and Nielsen consolidate their role as the arbiters that make or break a platform's narrative — and today's riser inherits exactly the fragility that felled yesterday's, as MySpace demonstrates.
The trend: Social network hierarchies are churning faster than any single platform's product cycle, with measurement-firm rankings — not features — deciding who counts as a leader.