From compete.com, a new analysis indicating that social network sites are gaining on the traditional portals for overall traffic. While this analysis doesn’t deal with who is visiting, its still directionally important to help understand the future. For the first 10 years search was the killer app to drive traffic. That could be shifting.

Compete Blog » Blog Archive » Social Networks gaining on Top Portals

Since January 2004, the number of people visiting or taking part in one of the top online social networks has grown by over 109% (primarily driven by MySpace). Most of this growth has come about in the past 12 months alone! Social networking sites are now close to eclipsing traffic to the giants – Google and Yahoo.

Some pertinent questions from Customer World.

1. What will capture their attention if brands want to engage with them? Advertising on these portals? I certainly don’t think so.
   May be brands need to start a series of ‘socially-engaged marketing’
   around them. Else, they will turn a blindspot to the communication.
2. What’s ‘socially-engaged marketing’? Well, it’s more than a message
   according to me. It’s a conversation. I went to myspace.com and looked
   at different groups and searched for some popular groups. The most
   number of groups where formed around Fan Clubs ( 49400 groups), School
   & Alumni(48849 groups), Recreation & Sports ( 31946 groups),
   Entertainment(20028 groups)! People seem to grouping around interests,
   passion, relationships, belonging etc. The worst were Automotive( 2
   groups), Business & Entreprenuers(0 groups)!