Battle of the communities: Bebo vs Myspace

According to the BBC, the Nielsen NetRatings show the two largest community webspaces are neck and neck. (Though having read through the Neilsen PDF news release, I can't see any mention of Bebo figures, so I'm not sure where the source data comes from.)

History, past performance and longevity aren't particular stumbling blocks on the internet. Myspace and Bebo are both relatively young, yet receive the fifth and sixth highest number of page views.

The BBC report that Neilsen measure community websites growing their audiences by 12% annually. But in the last year, Bebo grew by over 160%, and MySpace just under 300%.

Although both firms' names are often muttered in the same breath, there are significant differences in their users and their habits:

• 54% of Bebo users are under 18, compared to only 31% of MySpace users
• Beboers users spend longer on the site each month - an average of 1 hour 52 minutes compared to 1 hour 28 minutes for MySpacers

With News Corp buying MySpace in summer 2005, expect to see tie-ups in the UK with The Sun newspaper over the next few months. as the media group try and capitalise on their substancial $580 million investment.

Social networking is here to stay.