Sunday, October 08, 2006

Is MySpace over the hill?

According to an Advertising Age article, MySpace users got 23 years older over the past year. Actually, the real numbers show that the lifeblood of MySpace (12 to 17 year olds) dropped as a percentage of total subscribers from 24.7% to 11.9% year over year. At the same time, users between the ages of 35 and 54 make up 40.6% of the site's user base. In the meantime, Facebook and Xanga are still attracting youthful audiences.

This development is actually quite problematic for MySpace. Teen users are the trendsetters who originally decided that MySpace was relevant. Without them, the MySpace brand could suffer as well as future user growth. This is especially important since over the past month, teen users spent more than 40% more time and viewed many more pages on MySpace than their older counterparts.

It is difficult to tell what an older user base will mean for the future of MySpace, but Fox Interactive is reacting by developing the site as a platform for services and content. What services and what content? I have no idea.

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