---
title: "Social Networks gaining on Internet portals"
date: 2006-08-11
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# Social Networks gaining on Internet portals

US Web stats company Compete has some [ interesting analysis](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://blog.compete.com/index.php/2006/08/11/top-social-networks-gaining-on-top-portals-yahoo-google/) on how Social Networking sites compare to portals. From [a sample size](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://blog.compete.com/index.php/?pagename=where-do-these-numbers-come-from/) of around 2 million US people, Compete concludes that social networking sites are quickly approaching the traffic level of the big portals like Google and Yahoo. Their key findings:

> 1\. In June, 2 out of every 3 people online visited a social networking site
> 
> 2\. Since January 2004, the number of people visiting or taking part in one of the top online social networks has grown by over 109%
> 
> 3\. Social networking sites are now close to eclipsing traffic to the giants – Google and Yahoo

They liken the growth of SNS to email in the 90’s. A couple of charts from Compete:

Given my recent coverage of [international markets](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_russian_web_apps.php), it’d be interesting to see how the likes of [Bebo](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://www.bebo.com/) fits into this picture – as Bebo recently overtook MySpace as the top SNS [ in the UK](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/2006/08/bebo_overtakes_myspace_as_most_1.html). Compete’s stats are US-only, but in any case it’s clear that [all trends](https://web.archive.org/web/20100308083758/http://mashable.com/2006/08/09/myspace-hits-100-million-accounts/) point to SNS sites overtaking the Internet portals – sooner rather than later.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_networks_vs_portals.php))*