Social Network Overlap

In this height of Facebook mania, we've all seen or heard the opinion that Facebook is eating LinkedIn's or Myspace's lunch. I've seen some reports from Compete and Read/Write Web in the last couple weeks that imply (to me anyway) that they are each simply expanding the social network market rather than abruptedly taking market share from each other.

There is very good data on the demographic breakdown of the users, particularly in the R/WW post.

From the R/WW post:

• 62% of Facebook users also use MySpace, but only 15% of MySpace users also use Facebook.
• Only 5% of Facebook users also use LinkedIn, but 16% of LinkedIn users are on Facebook.

Slightly different numbers from the Compete post, which has a great matrix:

• 64% of Facebook users also use MySpace, but only 20% of MySpace users also use Facebook.
• Only 2% of Facebook users also use LinkedIn, but 42% of LinkedIn users are on Facebook.

To me Facebook is not a professional network, it's personal. LinkedIn is all professional.

Comments

[Asian Bimbo]

How did they derive those statistics? Also, I know some people who use a different email address for their Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. I don't suppose the data analysis took that into account?

[Jordan Mitchell]

Hey, thx for stopping by!

I'm not sure how Rapleaf sources their data, but I know Compete uses web browsing data directly obtained from ISPs and their own toolbar. In both cases, it doesn't matter what credentials I use to login, they can still tell that I logged into and browsed the various social networks.