Facebook recorded almost twice as many global visitors in December than long-time leader MySpace, according to online research firm ComScore.
Facebook had almost 222 million unique visitors last month, while MySpace came in at 125 million. That's a dramatic change since the race for unique visitors was a near dead heat in April of 2008.
"The trend isn't new in terms of Facebook's phenomenal growth," said Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis at ComScore. "It's doubled its number of visitors in the past year."
However, while Facebook holds a sizeable lead worldwide, MySpace still leads the way in the US. Lipsman noted that Facebook has about 55 million American users every month, while MySpace has 75.9 million a month. And two-thirds of MySpace users are based in the US, compared with only a quarter of Facebook's users. Lipsman said Facebook has done a great job of luring in worldwide users, especially with its foreign language interfaces. In the markets with the new interfaces, he noted that Facebook quickly went from a small player to a leader in social networking.
"It's gained traction because it's become more culturally relevant," said Lipsman. "I think there's a lot of room for international growth [for MySpace]. MySpace is rooted in the music culture in the US but it needs to transcend that market. Maybe there's an opportunity to strike a cord with international audiences."
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