Survey Finds Social Networking Users Have Little Loyalty

Network-Hopping, Widgets & Links Connect, Cross-Pollinate the Social Networking Market

MySpace users are chronically unfaithful, according to Parks Associates’ Web 2.0 & the New Net, a new report that focuses on the social networking market. Nearly 40% percent of MySpace users keep profiles on other social networking sites such as Friendster and Facebook. Loyalty among the smaller social networking sites is even lower, with more than 50% of all users actively maintaining multiple profiles.

These trends highlight a peculiar aspect of the market for social networking services. Nearly half of all social networkers regularly use more than one site; one in six use three or more. The result is an increasingly interlinked environment tied together by links, widgets, and the users themselves. “MySpace is a growing ecosystem and one that ironically now extends beyond MySpace itself,” said John Barrett, the lead author of the report, Web 2.0 & the New Net.

In Barrett’s view, this environment creates fertile ground for new social networking sites and application providers. “A handful of users are all it takes to connect new services to the MySpace-centered environment. From there it can begin to spread virally, assuming of course that it offers something people want.”

Web 2.0 & the New Net analyzes the social media space and provides data from Parks Associates’ library of consumer research studies. For more information on this or other reports, visit http://www.parksassociates.com; contact Parks Associates at 972-490-1113; or e-mail sales@parksassociates.com.

About Parks Associates: Parks Associates is a market research and consulting firm focused on all product and service segments that are “digital” or provide connectivity within the home. The company’s expertise includes home networks, digital entertainment, consumer electronics, broadband and Internet services, and home systems.

Parks Associates hosts several fall events and co-hosts CONNECTIONS™ and CONNECTIONS™ Europe (in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association) each year. In addition, Parks Associates produces the publication Industry Insights two times per year in conjunction with the CONNECTIONS™ Conference series.