by Dennis Coleman

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: May 21, 2012

Facebook started out as a small social network that mostly appealed to college students. MySpace was the giant, with deep ties to the music and entertainment industry. Forbes says that when News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, it was the world's fifth-biggest site in terms of page views.

But in the last few years, the little David of Facebook has overtaken the Goliath MySpace. According to ComScore, Facebook recently hit 77 million unique visitors a month, up from a little over 70 million in May, with MySpace lagging behind at 68.4 million uniques a month. Many consider Facebook easier to use and better designed. ComCast says visitors to MySpace tend to be 35-years-old and above, while both teenagers and adults are flooding Facebook.

The total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, making it the number one social network when ranked by total minutes for the month. MySpace's total minutes have actually dropped 30 percent year-over-year.

Facebook combines the graphics of MySpace with the ease of Twitter. People talk about what they're doing at that moment, but they're also uploading photos of recent trips or articles from online news sites that interest them. Facebook has instant chat, email, newsfeed and status updates that keep people in constant and direct touch with one another. In the battle of social networking, Facebook is currently on top.

But don't count out MySpace yet. There is one place where MySpace is winning and that's in online video. With over 120 million video streams, MySpace was the number one social networking destination when ranked by streams and total minutes spent viewing video.

MySpace may be letting Facebook claim the top social networking spot, but it's attempting to transform itself as a hub for online music and original programming related to music, like special performances and behind-the-scenes footage of musicians on tour. It seems that almost every band has a MySpace page with music videos and maybe even interviews with band members. Facebook pages have a little of that, but can't compete with the numbers on MySpace. That might help MySpace win in the fight for the all-important advertising market. By building an online community around music news and music fans, MySpace is filling the void left by MTV's move to reality programming years ago. Advertisers find music fans more open to ads than people on personal social networking pages like those on Facebook. Some experts think MySpace has a better shot than YouTube at winning fans and advertisers because MySpace is allowing more interaction on their site.

So has Facebook put an end to MySpace? As the top social network site, the answer seems to be yes. But MySpace is reinventing itself as the place to go for music and it doesn't plan to disappear into the Internet ether any time soon. In the world of social networking, things can change quickly. Remember when Friendster was going to be the new hot thing? It's a volatile industry and anything can happen at a moment's notice.

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