MySpace a hit with Singaporeweb surfers

Singapore, August 30, 2005 – Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service reports on News Corp’s acquisition of Intermix and its net community website, MySpace (www.myspace.com).  The MySpace website, which allows users to create a network of friends and contacts online, is shaping up to be a successful venture for New Corp’s expanding web presence. According to Hitwise, MySpace increased its market share in the Singapore Computers and Internet – Net Communities and Chat category by a significant 71% between weeks ending July 2 and August 20, 2005.

MySpace is now at its highest ranking ever in what is a popular category with Singapore Internet users, sitting at 11^th position.

MySpace is likely to increase its ranking even further as more users catch on to the variety of entertainment content offered on the website. A core strength of MySpace is its music component which allows users to sample tracks directly on the site from bands. This delivery format offers an effective platform for promoting artists and circumvents issues with pirating.

The popularity of MySpace poses significant competition to other social-networking and blog websites. Friendster (www.friendster.com) remained the top website in Net Communities and chat for the week ending August 20, 2005 with 18.29% market share. LiveJournal.com ranked at 7^th position with 2% share.

Clickstream analysis highlights parts of MySpace that are most popular with users. MySpace Blog received the most downstream visits with 8% share, followed by MySpace Music (4.9%) and MySpace Games (2.6%), for the month of July 2005.

The strength of engagement that MySpace draws is evident: Users spent on average close to 12 minutes on MySpace during the week ending August 20, well above the all categories average of 8 minutes, 16 seconds.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.sg  

For media enquiries, please contact:

Contact: James Borg; (+61 3) 8530 2420 or james.borg@hitwise.com