More Than Half Of MySpace Visitors Are Now Age 35 Or Older

Executives are always asking me to break down MySpace’s member demographics. I had the chance to meet with MySpace a month ago and they told me their fastest growing segment was 35+ year olds which at the time was counter-intuitive. Here’s some new data from comScore to set the record straight.

The data shows that as MySpace has grown, it has become more popular among older Internet users. Internet users between the ages of 35-54 now account for 40.6 percent of the MySpace visitor base, an 8.2 percentage point increase during the past year. At the same time, 12-17 year olds, who accounted for 24.7 percent of the MySpace audience in August 2005, now represent a much lower 11.9 percent of the site’s total audience.

A few months ago I was sharing some ideas on MySpace with some of our interns and I asked one MySpace “power user” what he thought of my point-of-view. His response said a lot: “Mr. Walker, I’m still trying to get over the fact that you know what MySpace is” It will be interesting to see if Gen Y members continue to hang out on MySpace or get squeezed out by older, later adopters. My guess is that this phenomena will fuel new social network sites exclusively for teens and off limits to everyone else.

5 October 2006 | MySpace, Research, Social Networks | Comments