Younger Users Moving Away From MySpace

People aged over 35 account for more than half of the visitors to social networking site MySpace.com, according to a report by US research company comScore Media Metrix.

In August 2005 a quarter of all visitors to the site were aged 12 – 17, a year later that had more than halved to just under 12%. The number of 18 – 24-year-olds has dipped from almost 20% of visitors to 18%.

By contrast, there was growth in all demographics above the age of 24. The number of 35 to 54-year-olds visiting the site has grown from 32.4% to 40.6% of all unique visitors.

When combined with the 11% of over 55s using the site, up almost 4%, the 35 and older market accounts for almost 52% of MySpace visitors.

“As social networking sites have become mainstream the demographic composition of MySpace has changed considerably,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president at comScore.

“There is a misconception that social networking is the exclusive domain of teenagers, but this analysis confirms that the appeal of social networking sites is far broader.”

ComScore’s figures show that the number of US unique users of MySpace has grown dramatically, from 21.8 million in August last year to 55.8 million in the same month this year.

MySpace www.myspace.com