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Social Networking Visits Increase 11.5 Percent From January To February

iMeem and Bebo are the Fastest Movers

NEW YORK, NY– March 14, 2007–According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, the market share of Internet visits to the top 20 social networking websites grew by 11.5 percent from January to February 2007, to account for 6.5 percent of all Internet visits in February 2007.

Websites that showed the largest increases in market share of visits were Buzznet, up 148.4 percent and iMeem, up 145.7 percent from January to February 2007. Other fast growing websites included Hoverspot (up 19.6 percent) and Bebo (up 17.8 percent). Category leaders MySpace and Facebook also grew from January to February, with visits increasing 10.2 and 9.1 percent respectively.

"While MySpace is still by far the dominant social networking website, sites like Buzznet and iMeem are succeeding in building communities around music and other media" said LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise. "The social networking category will continue to grow as new sites emerge with unique offerings."

Market Share of US Internet Visits to Top 20 Social Networking Sites February 2007

Rank

Name

Domain

Market Share

1

MySpace

www.myspace.com

80.74%

2

Facebook

www.facebook.com

10.32%

3

Bebo

www.bebo.com

1.18%

4

BlackPlanet.com

www.blackplanet.com

0.88%

5

Xanga

www.xanga.com

0.87%

6

iMeem

www.imeem.com

0.73%

7

Yahoo! 360

360.yahoo.com

0.72%

8

Classmates

www.classmates.com

0.72%

9

hi5

www.hi5.com

0.69%

10

Tagged

www.tagged.com

0.67%

11

LiveJournal

www.livejournal.com

0.49%

12

Gaiaonline.com

www.gaiaonline.com

0.48%

13

Friendster

www.friendster.com

0.34%

14

Orkut

www.orkut.com

0.26%

15

Windows Live Spaces

spaces.live.com

0.18%

16

HoverSpot

www.hoverspot.com

0.18%

17

Buzznet

www.buzznet.com

0.18%

18

Sconex

www.sconex.com

0.14%

19

MiGente.com

www.migente.com

0.11%

20

myYearbook

www.myyearbook.com

0.11%

Note - data is based on custom category of 20 of the leading social networking websites ranked by market share of visits, which is the percentage of traffic to the site, based on Hitwise sample of 10 million US Internet users. The percentages represent the market share of visits among the websites within the custom category.

Source: Hitwise

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology captures the anonymous online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com  and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

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