Report: Facebook Outpacing MySpace Outside of U.S.

Officials from what’s emerging as the most popular social networking site on Earth – even if it’s not dominating in the United States – are reporting this week that they’re leaving their closest international competition behind.

 

Officials from Facebook say their site has seen 153 percent growth year-over-year, compared to an “essentially flat” growth rate at MySpace (News - Alert), according to BetaNews.

 

“The phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world – especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets,” according to Jack Flanagan, the executive vice president of comScore, which produced the data.

 

According to data released this week by comScore, Facebook (News - Alert) drew 132.1 million unique users in June, compared to 117.6 million for MySpace. Another social networking site, Hi5, reportedly doubled its unique userbase to 56.4 million.

 

According to the comScore data, social networking in North America is reaching a plateau, with year-over-year growth at about 9 percent. But the Middle East and Africa regions are seeing a 66 percent growth rate, and Europe and Latin America areseeing 35 and 33 percent rates, respectively, the data shows.

 

“MySpace is not taking part in the growth spurt, at least for now,” BetaNews reports. “It has struggled to expand its business outside of the United States. While it remains hugely dominant here, in many overseas countries it is barely registering.”

 

The opposite is true of Facebook, according to comScore. Non-U.S. users now make up 63 percent of Facebook’s user base.

 

“This can likely be tracked to its efforts to localize the site,” BetaNews reports. “It’s now available in some 89 languages, contributing to faster growth.”

 

It may be true that Facebook’s rise in the United States appears to be tapering off, but experts say it could play a critical role in the nation’s imminent presidential election.

 

According to TMC President and Group Editor-In-Chief Rich Tehrani, candidates John McCain and Barack Obama even outpace modern companies in using Web 2.0 tools.

 

“Recently in fact the McCain campaign emailed a series of videos which let his supporters choose which video is the better choice at showing the media love affair with Barrack Obama,” Tehrani reported on his blog. “Shortly thereafter, the Obama campaign pushed out a video of the candidate making a rousing speech in Germany.”

Yet – and for reasons that have more to do with his base of supporters, experts say – Obama’s Facebook popularity appears to outdo McCain’s.

 

“A look at the Barrack Obama page on Facebook shows 1,253,483 supporters in fact. A look at the John McCain Facebook page shows a much lower 187,894 supporters,” Tehrani writes. “This is not surprising as one expects Obama supporters to be younger and subsequently more accustomed to using Facebook. It does come as a surprise to me to see how high the Barack Obama Facebook page ranks on Google (News - Alert). Assuming the second result Google displays is the most popular page associated with Facebook, this is quite an accomplishment.”

 

According to Tehrani, the Obama support likely shows that his campaign doesn’t need to spend as much money to influence its base as the McCain camp does.

“Still, for the McCain camp, the online world is not to be forgotten as it is my feeling that many of the candidate’s supporters are busy executives who may not use Facebook but may be on LinkedIn and various news sites,” Tehrani writes.

 

Meanwhile, BetaNews says, Facebook’s competitors appear to be pursuing a different strategy when dealing with international markets. For example, Hi5 released tools to allow users to localize the site into various languages, while supplementing it with its own work in translating services.

 

“MySpace is doing things much differently,” BetaNews writes. “Instead of expanding everywhere and anywhere, it seems focused on developing markets where there are not only latent users, but also ad dollars. The company believes that this strategy is the more viable one for expansion outside the United States.”