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Readers have reported that this story contains information that may not be accurate.

30% of the entire US Internet population use MySpace

emarketer.com — Can 51 million people be a fad? The executives at News Corp. and MySpace certainly hope not. The article has some interesting statistics of social websites. Unfortunately digg is not on the list.

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  • Haroldx, on 10/12/2007, -7/+37Innacurate.
    • arunforce, on 10/12/2007, -12/+34100% *****. 30% of the people don't even know what Myspace is...
    • aegreen, on 10/12/2007, -11/+11I disagree. With all the press coverage that MySpace has been recently been given, I would be suprised if the majority of Americans -didn't- know what MySpace is.
    • sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -22/+1@zivilyn - Whats MySpace?
    • stomicron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1951 million unique visitors does not equal 51 million unique registered users. They're talking IP addresses, and the millions of people obsessed with mywasteofspace likely log on from every computer they encounter.

      Marked as inaccurate.
    • quasipalm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Wait a minute though... the article says 30% of the ONLINE population. That still seems overstated, but at least it's a little closer to reality.
    • curtissthompson, on 10/12/2007, -14/+3Yeah, this in hgihly inaccurate...as the U.S. population is sitting just under 300 million people! 51 million of 300 million isn't even close to 30%.....it is half that...=15%!
    • Imagine3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3and Myspace has 87 million registered users as reported by multiple news agencies. So the the whole 51 milion or30% is way off.
    • DJMajickman, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Let's see one account for school, one account for work, and one account for home, so that means 10% or less.
    • birch25, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22"100% *****. 30% of the people don't even know what Myspace is"

      so 70% do know?
    • theking89, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11The empirical data may be skewed due to the the methods used, but I think most of you are missing the point. The point is not X number of people are using MySpace... the point is that many, many people are using MySpace. Why do you think ol' Rupert bought it up? Not because it is some pointless piece of crap.

      I for one do not use MySpace, however I am not the target user for this service. Most of you who hate it only do so because you hate the fact that the everyday Joe has an easy, popular means to put themselves on-line. You want the masses going to sites and taking in the content others think is good for them, instead of posting their own.

      The point of all this is that the internet is changing, always has been and always will. This is just the latest chapter. I am not saying MySpace is the bets thing since sliced bread, but those of you who completely discount it and others like it are going to wake up one day and wonder why they have been left behind.
    • donsmith, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I too want to know what "unique" means. Sites like myspace don't care how many accounts you have, where as sites like digg want you do stay with one ID, because you're voting.

      I'm sure with a bit of research it would read something more like: 90% of people ages 12-25 visit myspace every month and they each have an average of 4.6 accounts. The rest are parents watching their kids and a few social deviants. But of course everyone has heard of it by now.
    • fluffebunnie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's good to be the minority on this one.
    • fluffebunnie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Wait! What did I just say? Hahaha!

      FTW ----> 30% is not a majority.
    • SentOne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+530% of the INTERNET POPULATION
    • wiu_life, on 10/12/2007, -17/+6agreed inaccurate, btw F myspace you emo fags
    • pauleric, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Unique visitors in a month != registered users. For example, go visit drudgereport and search for myspace stories. So I wouldn't be surprised at all if they had claimed a number higher than 30%.
    • dasil003, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2and registered users != individual persons... myspace got big from band profiles. Nowadays its filled with pornbots and other scripts. I realize this is not the point of the article, but it's the headline, so it deserves to get shot down for being sensationalistic *****.
    • llbbl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I wouldn't call what everyone on myspace is doing as "use"...
    • VyRuZ, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Only two things to assume here...
      1) 29% of the *online population* are rapists. [1]
      2) 30% of the *online population* are stupid.

      Hmm...
      NOTE: The 1% are european females.
  • flubba, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12no way.
    • skyshock21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I dunno.... I think we can all agree that 30% of the US are complete and total ***** morons. It doesn't seem like a big stretch. ;)
  • Sell, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20I'm glad to be a part of the majority on this one then.
  • bbgmp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Don't unique visitor cookies usually just a week at most? This story is crap and pointless. No digg.
  • dankoleary, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8I agree total absolute crap. I want to know how many of the 51 million registered all time users come back at least weekly. Like my cable TV package comes with Lifetime movies, so I'm technically a subscriber. However, it would be a cold day in hell before I'd actually watch something on there. I suspect MySpace has some funny numbers going on,
    • mrmidgetman, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0hey idiot, thats a HORRIBLE analogy. Unless, of course, you are claiming that having internet automatically signs you up for a myspace account.
  • Valo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Okay maybe its not 51 million users using myspace, its hard to believe that myself too. But the chart does show the facts that myspace is being used almost 3 to 1 as compared to other sites. It doesn't matter if those people have mutible accounts or if its spam. I know myspace keeps its spam down as much as it can. This chart does have a great swing of error but still its safe to say that the other sites have their share of the same inacurrsy as myspace does. Plus the study was done by people who know what they are doing. (Of course dankoleary maybe half right, it might have been Rupbert Murdock who paid for this study and that might have skewed the rateings).
  • EmileVictor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24Lets make a more accurate estimate:

    More people use myspace than vote in the American elections.
    • Adduc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19More people use myspace then read the article they just dugg.
    • bf01, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4"More people use myspace than vote in the American elections."

      Still inaccurate. You can say that there are more MySpace accounts than the number of people that vote in American elections, but you can't say more people.

      It's just like Ryan Seacrest on American Idol saying that there were more votes in the finale than in the last presidential election. Well, of course there were, you can only vote once in the presidential elections (unless you are an Ohio republican).
  • DevilsRejection, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21The only thing I got from myspace was hepatitis C
  • thumb_tack99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2230% of the internet population has been molested by men over 40.
  • godmode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13You have to register to even look at a picture on myspace, which means millions of people registering and leaving their accounts inactive.
    So these number are pure unadulterated crap.
  • Popdmb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Reported as completely innaccurate and probably written by Rupert Murdoch.
  • Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Meaning they logged on once, made an account, and never looked at it again.
    • xXShadowstormXx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Exactly.
    • sepultura, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Most likely.
    • jamesmorad, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2personally, i rarely come across accounts that are inactive or were only used to log in to view pictures.... only 2 people out of all my friends ranging from guys at the dorms from college or my friends from back in highs school do not have myspace. everyone else i know is on. so if you guys want to self rightous and think that because you dont do no one else does it, then go ahead but you're pretty much all wrong.
  • Sandman3G, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Either way, I'm just happy I'm not one of the (insert real number here) people who use it.
  • JayRod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3MySpace is probably as popular as AOL was maybe 10 years ago. People talk to each other and see profiles and look for other people to maybe hook up with. Or maybe just go on line at the same time as your friends and get together and chat. All this is is the new AOL, but for free. That's why it's popular. Maybe it's just a fad. Maybe it will be around for a while until it gets boring
  • VerbalIronyX, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7Dude I hate myspace so much...
  • dWhisper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Just to answer the question posed...

    "Can 51 million people be a fad? "

    Yes. There have been "fads" that have spread far, far more and involved more people.
    • mrmidgetman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6POKEMON!!!!
    • blackpipe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1...the Macarena... ugh
    • bcsmith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Don't forget that the internet is also just a fad...
    • Bokista, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone else down for Pogs if we're starting fads back up?
  • RandomPrecision, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Unfortunately digg is not on the list."

    What the hell does that have to do with anything in the article? It seems a lot of people seem to think the only things worth reporting are blog surveys that say Digg is cool.

    Who cares? What a contentless waste.
  • jonstafari, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4myspace... what's that? arf arf

    seriously though, i'm suspecting a "join the cool crowd" marketing scheme from Mr Murdoch and company.

    so this article just states "social networking sites" -- the article says, "MySpace was the seventh most visited site on the Internet last month." I wonder how myspace compares to other sites, non-social networking ones

    screw myspace... I want my BB's back!

    sigh

  • FuManchu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4It's been quite a few decades since 51 million people amounted to 30% of the US population.
    • sepultura, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2It's the internet population...not the whole US population.
    • gamerage, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2The article said it was 30% of the US *internet* population.
    • rjam710, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Read the article, it's 30% of the US INTERNET population.
    • viclopez, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4timmehh!!
  • jonstafari, on 10/12/2007, -6/+0myspace... what's that? arf arf

    seriously though, i'm suspecting a "join the cool crowd" marketing scheme from Mr Murdoch and company.

    the article says, "MySpace was the seventh most visited site on the Internet last month." I wonder how myspace compares to other sites, non-social networking ones

    screw myspace... I want my BB's back!
  • FuManchu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3And the "internet population" is an unknown -- due to the fact that multiple users on one account vary widely.
  • CollateralDmg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I personally think the social networking thing is just a fad. Eventually people will get bored with having pointless friends and maintaining worthless sites. As communications software like AIM/Gtalk/etc, email, VOIP, and what not become increasingly simplified and ever more integrated into the standard user's desktop, people will eventually realize they have access to everyone they actually want to communicate with. There will always be a market for random personalized webpages, but blogging seems to fulfill that. MySpace won't die, but it will fade away much more quickly than news corp hopes.

    Or maybe I just hope it will.
  • ensert13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5So you're saying 30% of the US internet population is Emo?
  • cyzoonic, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2Is that the same 30% that support Bush?
  • froman98, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think the one thing they don't compensate for is all of the duplicate and fake accounts. Just to skew the statistics, I just signed up 4 accounts. Hahaha.
  • CheapDigWannbe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is such *****, just because someone creates a myspace profile for their friends, who then don't use, and it stays empty, that should not be caunted into those 30%

    This is totally inaccurate.

    The number of Myspace pages equals 30% of U.S. population should've been the name of the story.
  • posterposter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"MySpace racked up visits from 51.4 million unique visitors in the US"

    How can they tell that I'm unique? So I check while at school in the computer lab. I check while at home with my desktop. And sometimes my laptop decides that it wants to join my neighbor's wireless network without telling me and I check myspace once again. If I haven't logged in (which I tend not to do since I seem to be checking out a lot of band sites), how can they determine that I'm a unique visitor? 3 different sets of cookies, 3 different IP addresses, 3 different computers, one person. Am I missing something?
  • srodolff, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Going to the website, registering, and creating a default MySpace webpage is not using it.

    I've probably put a total of 1 hour into the site.
  • ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That article is as about as accurate as any Fox news broadcast.

    Pure unadultered *****.
  • jahelton81, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Unfortunately digg is not on the list."

    Actually, that's probably a good thing. Does anybody really want digg rubbing elbows on a list with MySpace?
    • LucasOman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's hard to get most diseases by rubbing elbows. If Myspace ever shares a bed with Digg, though, I'll be worried.
  • scottc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+330% is inaccurate. Consider that, according to the US census bureau about 19% of the population is either under 5 years old or over 65. Each of those groups have close to 0% representation on myspace. 1% of the US population is in prison or jail. No internet access there except in rare circumstances. Another 1% is illiterate - truly illiterate meaning they can't read or write ANY language. Of course a fair amount of those are probably in the prison population. Then you have people whose only language is not one commonly used on myspace. And of course the biggest excluded group of all, those without internet access.

    I would be surprised if 5% of the US population used myspace. Advertisers relying on statistics like that sure make the click fraud whiners look silly, don't they?
    • CollateralDmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The article specifies 'Internet Population,' so presumably this means that of the internet using population in the US, 30% use myspace. I think this figure is also false, but there you have it.
    • scottc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I stand corrected. I can't believe I read the whole thing and missed an important qualification like that!
    • mrmidgetman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0There should be an iq test to keep morons like you off digg. DON'T REPORT AS INNACCURATE IF YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE ARTICLE!!! It is 30%of the online population. A good portion of the inernet population is kids. And a lot of kids use myspace.
    • Unicron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Don't even have to read the article, it's in the title!
  • LooterMcBeer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Every Myspace retard out there has at least 2 accounts some have 3 and 4 id bet this numbers is no higher then 8%
    • jamesmorad, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2where the hell do you get that generalization? proof?
  • jeylux, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4This leads me to believe the united states is worthless.
  • LordFate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5100% of statistics cannot be trusted
  • ragold, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How about the conclusion that people must really like myspace from the fact that 67% of current users are old users. Couldn't the same statistic be used to show the declining popularity of myspace?
  • clickwir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5myspace SUCKS. That site is just simply aweful. It should be taken down and never even thought of again.
  • AncientWeird, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Im pretty sure if you pick a random MSpace profile and count their friends, you have reached the total number of accounts. Isn't everybody there on everybody elses friend list? Am I right?
  • tgilber, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Did a little research on the statistics. The "51 million unique visitors" was a statistic produced by "intrusive/volunteer" polling methods, i.e. something similar to Alexa. It's done by a company called comScore, which provides some very hand wavy details on their methodology. But, one of the "perks" of participating in their "survey" is "attractive sweepstakes prizes," which leads me to believe that a huge percentage of the net population will have learned to tune them out like so many other sweepstakes.

    So, more accurately, 30% of comScore users visit mySpace last month. You be the judge whether that's an accurate sample of the US internet population or not. I personally don't think it is... but woe are the ways of "volunteer" surveying of traffic.
    • LucasOman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think this is the first interesting, intelligent, purposeful comment in this entire thread. Thanks!

      Yes, that's a terrible sampling method. It's not even taught as a method for consideration. It's just wrong.

      I guess my biggest gripe about the article is not the way the information was calculated, because there's probably no other way to do it, but that they didn't explain any of the caveats involved. They just stated it like fact. Silly.
  • pmantis205, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3What a bunch of intimidated anti-social losers. Go back to your anime and porn. MySpace owns!
  • FantasykeyX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4That seems pretty accurate to me, but Myspace absolutely sucks!
  • Sonduren, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Myspace is OK, i dont like it though, some of my friends do, let them enjoy it, but we know its stupid 8)!
  • ogletree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5The article says 30% of Internet users not all people. I doubt the number is very accurate. Anybody who has run a popular website knows a large amount of that is bots. They have an alexa rating of 5. I don’t think anybody doubts they have a lot of visitors. The site has had tons of media exposure. I don’t think there are many Internet users out there that have not been there at least once. It is the top community site for sure.
  • Trenton, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Yeah, Definantly inaccurate, and I marked it as well. 30% does not seem accurate. I do know that it's really easy and you can almost find most of your friends/people from your school on it.
  • friend18, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Myspace is so cool it's uncool. Everyone and there mom is on myspace.
  • insinuate, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm sorry to say, but I used to hate Myspace as well...but when a really fine chick finds you on there and wants to meet up with you and do the do...and you do...you kind of like the idea of the site. Really easy to find those kind of friends with benefits. I love myspace.
    • dgp1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah sure, too bad the only "fine chicks" on there are freaking porn site bots.

      "Check out my Pix on my Other Web Site!"
  • kahrn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2MySpace is an embarrassment to the modern society, and an embarrassment to the internet. It spreads like a virus. It should be destroyed.
    Anyways, this article is inaccurate.
  • thephillyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Everyone is bitching about the methods used to generate the statistics provided, but regardless of the specifics, MySpace is fundamentally altering the way young people use the interweb. None of my "under 30" friends send me email anymore, everything goes through their MySpace accounts and if you take a random look around the site, its amazing to see how often people keep up with their accounts, with a majority checking in at least once a week. All this on top of the fact that you really have to put some work in to customize your profile (in the most ugly way possible, by the way).

    My big problem with MySpace is that with Newscorp and Rupert Murdoch at the helm, the site's commercial and marketing interests are going to take precedence over the social networking possibilities that a site with a 60 million user base could provide. Add some calendar, photo sharing and other collaboration functionality to the site and it could really become a powerful replacement for a lot of popular web sites (as well as a heckuva testing ground for these types of online apps). But we're more likely to see spam type messaging related to the release of the latest summer movie or fake MySpace profiles featuring the characters of some cheesy tv sitcom.
  • jrsims, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2If this is true, I think we've found the 30% of people we need to exterminate in order to advance society to its next evolutionary level.
  • sillywampa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I created an account to see what all the hubub was about. I got several friends requests from spambots. how many of their users are actually spambots??
    • procdaddy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2a very small percentage. most are 15 year old girls with chanel backgrounds and a fall out boy song embedded.
  • procdaddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Statistics are ALWAYS right.

    "They've done studies, you know. 60% of the time, it works every time."
    • LucasOman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This article is awful. Stings the nostrils.
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