Notable News – MySpace is an Internet Ghetto

Call it “byte flight” if you will, but MySpace is losing traffic to its social networking competitors and the transition is socio-economic in nature.

Much like the real life phenomenon of urban centers emptying during the latter part of the 20th century, MySpace users are migrating to Facebook and leaving their old, abandoned profiles creating a virtual ghetto.  Mashable says,

Numbers released by web analytics firm Compete.com paint a terribly bleak picture for the future of MySpace

MySpace has lost 20% of its traffic since June.  CNN asks,

Is there a class divide online? Research suggests yes. A recent study by market research firm Nielsen Claritas found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found friending on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace.

The big question for the transition is why.  Is it because MySpace is more for teenagers who are now moving up to Facebook as they age?  Or is it an online mirror of real life society?  Perhaps the answer is more simple.  If you compare incomes of the 30 somethings that populate Facebook with the teenagers that dominate MySpace, you’ll always have a discrepancy in favor of the older generation.  Since Facebook is now open to everyone, it’s more natural that users have gone there.

I guess we’ll see how this all plays out.

Noteworthy News – Google Domestic Trends

Google trends goes macro.  Great for forecasters and market research.

If you think about the millions of searches conducted daily using Google, (GOOG) there is reason to believe you ought to be able to divine patterns or trends from the activity. If everyone is searching for a particular song for example, you might expect that artist to climb the charts. If searches are fast and furious for a digital camera, sales ought to correspondingly increase.

Take a look for yourself here.