The hype around the ‘web 2.0′ buzzword continues to grow and grow. From bullshit statements like
The latest annoyance has been the self-indulgent claim of web 2.0 bloggers that MySpace has 100,000,000 users. Interestingly, this specific headline says accounts, but the article and subsequent
articles all say users. I would say that anyone with half a clue knows that ‘accounts’ are not the same as ‘users’, but that would be obvious, wouldn’t it?
So to do some quick little debunking (and spreading some new numbers), I decided to do a quick an dirty analysis. I was going to check 303 random MySpace profiles and classify them into one of the following six types:
- Invalid Friend ID error
- Has not logged in since creation date (you can figure that out when
you see multiple users in a row) - Logged in for upto a week after creation
- Logged in for upto a month after creation
- Last logged in within the last month
- Last logged in within the last week
It goes without saying that #1-#2 are not real users, #3-#4 were just checking out what the hype is, #5 may still be a real user, and #6 is reflective of a ‘real’ user (especially in the social networking scene).
The sample chosen was simple. The 100 millionth account was as follows:
Just replace the friendid value, and we can look up any specific user id.
So we looked at accounts 25,000,000-25,000,100 , 50,000,000-50,000,100, and 100,000,000-100,000,100.
The results were, to say the least, underwhelming:
Don’t like bar graphs? Why don’t we try a beautiful pie graph:
Whew. Looks like the popular claim that MySpace has 100,000,000 users is hot air. More than 50% can’t even bother to visit again after a month. Based on assuming that type 5 and type 6 are the real ‘users’ of
MySpace, it turns out that MySpace really has roughly 43,000,000 users. Very unscientific? Yep. More accurate than the 100,000,000 myth? Damn straight. The 100,000,000 number is inflated by 133%.
So to those that have been tossing around this magical number … well, the truth shall set you free.
In all situations we erred on the side in favor of MySpace
P.S. – I like TechCrunch and Mashable, but as two of the biggest web 2.0 blogs, I expect them to be a bit more careful before making big claims that have no substance.
Attachments:
MySpace Data
Dude,
In fairness, I frequently point out that those numbers are inflated. To quote the 100 million accounts post:
“Of course, that figure has been bumped up by millions of fake and inactive accounts, but itâs still a remarkable achievement.”
Also note my skepticism in subsequen posts – I’m certainly not a hyper. 43 million sounds about right.
what about the users without accounts? alot of my friends, myself included use myspace purly to find new music and download songs. None of us have the time nor the desire to put our lives online.
are we concidered myspace users? i would think so since we use the service they provide. Although i agree the number is inflated, your numbers do not take into account the all the users who do not have accounts.
way to label your graphs
Dude,
Let’s face it Cashmore, the jury has spoken. Charge: Hyping. Verdict: GUILTY!
I did something much like this, and found that about half of them were actual users.
There were a TON of people registered in east asia that hadn’t logged in for years.
I’m glad to see someone call out myspace.
Very nice quick analysis. I would also say that it’s a BS-number, and I would add one more group. Those who have CLOSED their accounts. I would be willing to bet MySpace doesn’t go back and use those numbers! I’ve had friends who have actually gone and closed down their accounts for various personal reasons.
Of course, those might show up as “Invalid Friend ID”, but I don’t feel like registering an account and closing it just to see.
ALSO: I think another group is one that registers for an account so they can see pictures on their rare visit to MySpace. However, they don’t add anything to their profile, don’t leave comments. Pretty much complete lurkers. However, when they visit, it hits the “logged in” counter.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I certainly wouldn’t call that a user.
Thats what the mormons do to, to get their 12 million member number. And their percentage is pretty close to what you found on myspace – slightly less than half of the 12 million claimed momrons actually exist and/or consider themselves mormons.
Who cares, all that matters is traffic which is essentially currency. Whether the user has an active profile or not is immaterial.
303 samples? 303 samples to determine something about a population of 100 million? You gotta be kidding.
Astute analysis! I did this kind of an analysis on a sample size of a larger pool of users once, and it turns out, after you’ve checked out and categorized a small sample size (like 0.25% or 0.5% of the full database size), it turns out to be a fairly accurate predictor of the whole.
The TechCrunch article didn’t say that 85% of college students use Facebook:
“The penetration rate is staggering – about 85% of students in supported colleges have a profile up on FaceBook.”
Try reading the article next time.
There is one more thing that you need to look at and that is multiple user use. I know a 14 year old girl that is a friend of my family and she uses Nexopia. What she has done in less than a year is setup six seperate Nexopia accounts so that she can be a different person to other people whenever she chooses. She uses all of the accounts as a primary account and sees this as a normal way to interact with this social network
dhaynes – umm, simply refer to subsequent posts on TechCrunch (and other publications). They explicitly state ’85% of college students use Facebook’
What Bill Nad said – I’ve heard some users claim they have 15-20 accounts, I myself have more than 1. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the number of active USERS was half the number of active PROFILES. Perhaps even less. So 43 million active profiles? Try 20 million active users.
Still a hell of a lot of users, but…
Well just looking at your numbers and having done a bunch of membership sites, I’ll point out that having 30% of all registered users still being active is INSANELY high and impressive. Esp, when you’re at a figure of 100M accounts and the actives are still at that high percentage it speakes volumes for the stickiness of myspace (and personally i don’t use it). I guess you can say it’s “hype” if people are stating 100M active users, but saying 100M accounts created and still over 30% being very active is a huge achievement … although probably not as eye-catching, awe-inspiring to people who have never worked with membership sites.
Spamspace. everyone and their dog are using it for marketing.
100 million 43 million, I still can’t figure out why people still dwell around that myspace crappy beast of a ‘site’… I just don’t like sites that look like shit and work like crap… I mean, Myspace must have hired some webdesigners en usability experts with all that money no?
Oh and please don’t let me mention the fact that people can ‘design’their own space… All those colors and animated gifs and…and…and!! Makes me think of… well 1996!
Myspace; when will this hype BOOM? (please let the Myspace beast die soon ^_^)
Other than kids who really uses myspace nowdays. It sucks and people have way too bloated pages!
I have 8 myspace accounts, most of which I never check and I can’t delete because I’m no longer able to check the email address associated with the profiles. Myspace’s numbers are highly highly inflated.
Myspace: an abomination. ’nuff said.
I agree with Nitin, I think it’s very impressive that a estimated 1/3 of their registered accounts have logged in in less than a week. Considering that the site has been running for 3 years.
what about account holders who log in for a few minutes (or are forced to do so by spam msgs) and thus fall into category 6.
I bet there’s tons of those as well that reduce the 43 million number.
By the time you take into account the 1-fake profiles used by marketers who are running bots all day and the fact that so many real people have numerous accounts (one for mom and dad, one for friends, one for trolling, etc), I’d say your sample is probably about right.
I’d love to see their uniques per month…
How do you know that the account # in the URL corresponds directly with the # of accounts they claim? Are you sure that you’re aware of every account # in the system?
Interesting analysis.
Comments:
43m sounds about right given thier current international channel reach.
Use cluster analysis next time, you can predictivly model growth more accurately that way (or lack thereof).
Note to Critic on Sample Size: You can actually get a fairly accurate trend read on a small smale size.
As to your analysis:
Much like the gaming industry there is a differance between:
For free games:
1. Registered users
2. Active users
For subscription games (assume free 15 day trial):
1. Registered users
2. Subscribing users
1. in both cases is often cited in press releases, 2 is a hard number to come by, and is usually an internally kept metric (in all industries)
Just some FYI while passing through..
Nice site btw….
So 100 million active profiles? Try 5 million active users.
Small sample or not, those numbers make a lot of sense to me. Still bloody huge, and like others say, that percentage of users actually active is very impressive – Small sample or not, those numbers make a lot of sense to me. Still bloody huge, and like others say, that percentage of users actually active is very impressive – <10% is a ballpark figure I’ve seen floated for a lot of other places. It’d be interesting to know how much of it’s bots, pure advertising etc.
it’s the dot-com numbers game all over again. you figure people should have learned the first time around about the perils of buying into big numbers, particularly those who “register” given there is a lot of site sampling happening as broadband connections make jumping from site to site so easy. you’re methodology may not be the most scientific but you have definitely put the spotlight on a key issue. good work!
Companies looking to advertise on MySpace like large numbers. The madeup accounts are only to attract advertisers. I applaud you on this post, though it does not look like many are. LOL
The whole Internet and specially the whole and complete so called ONLINE MARKETING area lives ONLY through “hype news”, and how, by the way, do you define “user” ?
There are millions of wrong informations, data and other ugly stuff out there – and that in mind gives you a more or less realistic view on whatÂŽs going on …
Therefore each and every figure which has been published online , has a remarkable amount of lies in it … due to the nature of the INTERNET. …
This is awesome work. I think there out to be more fact finding behind all the internet/web 2.0 hype. I am not surprised that people believed the 100 million figure, all the hype, and the hot air. This is yellow journalism. After all, Murdoch and Fox need to sell newspapers.
I’m also curious if they count all of the members of a band who has a page as separate users. So, if U2 has a page, do all 4 band members count as users?
x.
myspace is for loosers who blow smoke up each other asses. I, however, am going to turn of my mac now and go meet people.
Though I’m sure that there can’t be roughly the same amount of users on MySpace as there are a third of the United States, your scientific process still wasn’t lengthy enough. 100 million? 303 users is only a miniscule number compared to that. The only way to get even SEMI-trustworthy results is by looking at least 10% of the supposed 100 million accounts… which is 10 million. Your relatively miniscule research isn’t really going to put a dent in MySpace’s argument.
Still, you did make a worthy report. Besides, MySpace is an addictive social fix created for teens, consisting mostly of twelve-year-olds who fake their ages to 99. Thanks for at least putting the question out in the open!
Hi cool site amigo12!
Now it’s 145 million users.
I’m assuming, that Myspace is assuming, accounts = users. So 145 million accounts. Possibly less the number of accounts for movies, entertainers and porno sites. “Possibly”.
Like with any web site requiring membership, I’ll wagger that many accounts were just created to “see what’s inside” most people got bored and never came back. I think 50 million semi-active users is probably more realistic. Since most of the time the servers are overloaded I’ll bet that number will decrease overtime.
Latest news is there are about 9 billion users and myspace is more popular than Yahoo.
Check this:
Hi cool site friends!
hay elyse
oh my god i miss you heps ay
when are you coming back to tasmania
its not the same witihuot you
please come back
your so fun an stuff
well love you and miss you
xxxooomwahh
hay elyse
oh my god i miss you heps ay
when are you coming back to tasmania
its not the same witihuot you
please come back
your so fun an stuff
well love you and miss you
xxxooomwahh
OMG i have never been on this web page i have no idea what i am wirting about or what this is all about!!!!!!!!AHHH
What was the point of this rant, again?
Get a free wii: http://free-wii-now.blogspot.com
I like the way the comments represented myspace number , including duplicates and even ending with a spambot (until I ruined it)
Personally, I think you should have taken the first sample at a lower range of overall accounts. Say around 2000-2100 instead of 25,000,000-25,000,100. The lower range would have counted older accounts and i suspect that more of them are not active users. A quick count of user-id 2000-2030 showed that only 2 of the 30 accounts logged on in the past month. The lower sample range would have most likely skewed the data lower.
More than 50% can’t even bother to visit again after a month.
That’s really a huge proporation.
nice analysis but from a purely research/maths view point a 303 sample out of 43 million, let alone, 100 million can’t really be trusted. you’ve sampled less than 0.001% of users (again thats using 43 million not “account holders”). Obviously doing a massive number would be a pain in the arse I’m just saying, realistically, it’s not much to go on.
nice graphs though.
someone has alot of time on their hands
kjhkhjkhjkjhnice analysis but from a purely research/maths view point a 303 sample out of 43 million, let alone, 100 million can’t really be trusted. you’ve sampled less than 0.001% of users (again thats using 43 million not “account holders”). Obviously doing a massive number lkjhkjhkjh
Most of people in MySpace will not visit again after a month.
That’s really the truth.