MySpace still winning the online video war

by Dan Leahul, revolutionmagazine.com 03-Jun-09, 15:20

LONDON - Despite MySpace's near vanishing act from social media headlines, unlike rival Facebook and newcomer Twitter, the six year old social network remains king of online video and perhaps more importantly, putting advertising in front the eyes of its millions of users.

MySpace hosts three times more online video streams than its closest competitor in Facebook, a total of 384 million minutes of viewing in April, or nearly 40 minutes per MySpace user.

Facebook visitors spent 113 million minutes viewing video, with an average of 11 minutes per video viewer, according to Nielsen Online.

MySpace may be falling out of favour with web users, but it remains the favourite destination of millions for ad-supported streaming content, whether music videos, online shorts or movie trailers.

When new CEO Owen Van Natta took over MySpace in April, he caught the company at an interesting intersection. Its main rival Facebook has manoeuvred itself in a dominant position and Twitter has become an outright overnight sensation.

In the US alone, total minutes spent on Facebook increased 700% year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009, making it the number one social networking site for the month.

MySpace on the other hand dropped 31% year-over-year, to 5 billion total minutes.

Yet the research shows that MySpace is still a top destination for users and more so advertisers who know where influential eyes will be watching.

Nielsen Online's Jon Gibs, who conducted the research, said: "Maybe the better question to ask is who does each site reach - not who is 'winning.' What audiences are they drawing and how are they building for the future to maintain the loyalty of their visitors, who to this point have shown little long-term loyalty to any specific form."