News for the Week of November 12, 2006
Rumors that social networking's a slowing, soon-to-be passing fad are greatly exaggerated, new research indicates. This has been a hot topic in teen-tech news this fall, but let's get concrete...
Fresh numbers
"Doubting the popularity of MySpace? Don't," suggests Digital Trends News. Citing new findings from Web traffic measurer Hitwise, the article says MySpace is getting 82% of visits to the top 20 social-networking sites and experienced 51% growth in visits between last March and this past September. Visits to social sites over all grew 34%. In its report on the study, MediaPost cited other fast growers in social networking: "Other social sites making big gains in share of traffic include Bolt, up 271% [see this heads-up from a Bolt user]; Bebo, 95%; Orkut, 63%; and Gaia Online, 41%. In terms of average session time, Gaia Online ranked first at 47:01, followed by CrushSpot (30:31); MySpace (30:22); Bebo (25:39); and Tagged (20:33)." And of course all this MySpace traffic is spurring use of media-hosting sites (that MySpace users link to from their profiles) and sites that provide features for MySpace profiles. For example, "the top photo hosting site, PhotoBucket, increased market share by 43% from March to September, while Flickr grew by 49%. Visits to YouTube jumped 249% during that period [MySpace Videos grew 253%]. Slide, which lets users create slide shows of their photos and paste them on social networking sites, was the fastest-growing site in the category with a 1,300% gain in traffic." In other MySpace news, the service has serious international ambitions. This week MySpace launched in Japan (where indigenous social site Mixi just had a 1.8 billion IPO), and "with a presence already in Britain, Australia, Ireland, Germany and France, the company plans to add 11 other countries in the coming year," the New York Times reports.
Reality check
But don't think the socializing's all online. Harris Interactive just looked at the online and offline social lives of tweens (8-12) and teens (13-18) and found that, for both, the most common way of spending time with their friends is in person (the favorite way for 81% of tweens and for 53% of teens), followed by chatting on the phone. Harris did find that 75% of 13-to-18-year-olds have profiles in social-networking or community sites.
In other news...
- 1 percent is porn. The Web is actually not teeming with X-rated content, according to research by a University of California-Berkeley statistics professor. "A confidential analysis of Internet search queries and a random sample of Web pages taken from Google and Micrsoft's giant Internet indexes showed that only about 1% of all Web pages contain sexually explicit material," the San Jose Mercury News reports. The findings were presented in a Philadelphia federal court last week, where COPA - the Child Online Protection Act passed and almost immediately blocked by a federal judge in 1998 - is again on trial. On the surface the case is about online porn, but it's really a long, drawn-out case about free speech, and its latest arguments - between the Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union - are being heard in a federal court in Philadelphia. As for the study of online porn, according to the Mercury News it "found that only 6% of all queries returned a sexually explicit Web site, despite the consistent popularity of queries related to sex. It also found that the filters that did the best job blocking sexually explicit content also inadvertently blocked lots of content that was not explicit [and the study also concluded that a lot of adult content got through the filters].
- Game consoles' latest epic battle. Brace yourselves, holiday shoppers, the next wave of game console wars hits the US this weekend. Nintendo's new Wii console goes on sale here Sunday. Microsoft's Xbox 360 gained its beachhead a year ago. The PS3 launches in the US this Friday and sold out in Japan over the weekend, the BBC reports (it doesn't hit European stores till next spring). Some of the 8,000 older PlayStation games aren't working perfectly on the PS3, the Associated Press reports (mostly sound and image issues). "Users can punch in the name of the PS or PS2 game on the Web page, and a list will pop up, telling you if the game can be played without problems or not.
- Talking to friends on Orkut - literally! Google's social-networking site Orkut just changed enough to really distinguish itself from the pack of popular social sites. Orkut users can now "talk on the phone" with their friends. Orkut added Google Talk to its features and, at about the same time, opened itself up to everyone (Orkut users used to have to be invited in by existing members), according to the Mashable.com blog. With Google Talk, Orkut users can do both voice and text chat, or instant messaging, with people on their friends lists, Google explains on its own page about this. Yet another reason for parents to remind any Orkut users at their house not to put people they don't know in person on their friends lists.
- ID theft often begins at home. Most of the 9-10 million Americans who have their identities stolen each year don't know who did the stealing, but "half of those who do say the thief was a family member, a friend, a neighbor or an in-home employee," the New York Times reports, citing a Federal Trade Commission survey. The Times gives examples of an ex-spouse using the social security numbers of her underage children; a grown son tapping into his parents' credit; and a housemate and friend who had known the victim for more than two decades. "Identity theft involving family members takes many forms," according to the Times article. "A child steals a parent's identity to buy drugs, one sibling steals another's identity to try to avoid arrest or debt."
