These days the “other” social network everyone is talking about is, of course, Google+. While we were all busy chattering on about Circles and Hangouts, however, professional-tinged network LinkedIn quietly became the second-most popular social network in the United States, after Facebook. That pushes poor MySpace back to No. 3, in the US — but not worldwide.
According to a report from CNN, LinkedIn’s America-based web traffic during the month of June was 33.9 million unique visitors, based on numbers from comScore. During the same time period, MySpace managed to amass 33.5 million US visitors, down from about 34.9 million visitors in May.
As impressive as that may sound, those numbers don’t give MySpace a fair break. MySpace inexplicably still has an estimated 130 million active users. LinkedIn has about 115 million. Twitter, by comparison, has around 200 million; Facebook, 750 million. (Google+ is still in beta, and is only about two weeks old; it has an estimated 10 million visitors and counting.)
Still, US traffic to MySpace is down a full 50 percent from what it was at the same time last year. Because of its plummeting popularity, the company was recently sold for a mere $35 million to a partnership that consists of Specific Media and singer/actor Justin Timberlake. That amount is down from the $545 million News Corp paid for the site in 2005. The new owners hope to capitalize on Timberlake’s celebrity and sway in the music industry to boost MySpace back to a position of prominence.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, just launched its initial public offering (IPO) back in May, and its stock price more than doubled at the opening bell, popping from an initial price of $45 to more than $90. At that price, the company was valued at around $3 billion. Today, LinkedIn’s stock is trading at around $100 per share.
