Contributor: Stephen M. Fells
As a business owner I constantly look at the numbers but have always felt that on their own they are useless. Perspective is needed, specifically I ask “What is the trend?” Looking at last month’s sales, new client numbers and profit are all very interesting but seeing if they go up or down relative to the previous month, quarter or same period last year is far more valuable. It’s why the following chart is of particular interest. News Corp recently announced it was cutting almost 30% of it’s MySpace workforce. This ComScore graphic from Business Insider highlights a potential reason.
More interestingly is the closing gap between Twitter and MySpace. Twitter has it’s problems but as it matures I expect marketers (and advertising revenue?) to flock to it.
Ultimately what I draw from this graph is that Facebook stands alone as ‘the’ social network with Twitter it’s sole running mate. The vast service offering difference between these two companies suggests they can co-exist but we don’t know where Twitter is heading; ‘to infinity and beyond’ or the path of so many other ‘ dot coms’ that failed to live up to the hype. It will be interesting to see how Twitter monetizes it’s business (apologies to Barry Diller for use of the term ‘monetize’), it will be interesting to see how MySpace turns things around, it will be interesting to see how Google fights the momentum of Facebook growth, it’s simply an interesting time to watch technology.
