Once again, the actual number of users of the MySpace social networking website has come into question, with the 100 million figure quoted by other sites leaving out an important detail.
Those 100 million accounts represent about 43 million active users, based on an unscientific look at a sample of randomly selected accounts on MySpace by ForeverGeek. Here’s how ForeverGeek broke down the sample:
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 up to a week after creation
Logged in for up to 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 indicated that more than 50 percent of the site’s accounts never see another logged in visit 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,” ForeverGeek noted.
MySpace user figures have been disputed before. In February, Jupiter Research analyst Nate Elliot called MySpace’s membership figures a “mirage,”, an assessment Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn disputed in an email to Murdok:
I will tell you that Jupiter’s ascertain that My Space audience figures are inflated is nothing short of criminal. Call any of the official ratings services (Nielsen, comScore, Alexa) and you will see that Mr. Elliot’s comments are utterly false.
Another unscientific look at MySpace membership, by Bryan Hance of Cleveland, found a much higher login rate of users. His sample of 31,264 users had a rate of 82 percent logging back in to MySpace under five days after a previous login.
Only Levinsohn and MySpace really know how frequently their userbase returns to the site. Maybe in six months someone will do another check and we can speculate about this again.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
