According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, as of January 2009, more than 50% of Facebook's users and 44% of MySpace's users in the U.S. were over age 35, according to comScore's estimates. The researcher also claims that the single biggest age demographic in the U.S. on both MySpace and Facebook is now between 35 and 44. And Facebook's fastest growing demo is 55-plus.
Fear not, Facebook is still “cool”. It is still the most popular social networking site among college students (though they may want to be careful about certain photos they post). The fact that more people are using it has major implications to marketers. More of their marketing budgets are now being allocated toward social networking sites. For example, companies who specialize in travel and want to target their ads toward moms (knowing that they do most of the family trip planning), now have another channel to reach them.
Interestingly, MySpace, which launched initially as a similar application to Facebook has morphed into an entertainment-focused social networking application, where a majority of its users are artists and use the application to share their music with others.
But the concern is that Facebook, though prosperous now, will soon see a downward turn, like many trends that reach a saturation point. The question is, can it continually adapt to consumers’ desires and maintain its status as the number one social network? Or, will we start to see the point where consumers get bored and Facebook is no longer the most popular social network?
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