MySpace plums new depths; Facebook vs Google

myspace-fading-facebook-gaining

myspace-fading-facebook-gainingA former behemoth of the social network space has seen unique visitors almost halved after a year in which they’ve even considered a tie up with arch nemesis Facebook.

MySpace, which has already been put up for sale by News Corp after having a disastrous time of it, dropped from 70 million unique visitors in January 2010 all the way down to 45 million for the first month of 2011.

As Rupert Murdoch goes through the process of restructuring his business, the continuing deterioration will only go to value the company lower and lower.

The rumors that Zynga may purchase the company could mean a shake-up in the social media market and it may mean a lot to the online gambling industry if they are the ones to take over.

Meanwhile the current market leader Facebook may well resort to a bout in the ring at some point in the near future as Google continues to make life that little bit harder for them.

The latest stunt involves Google removing the ability for contacts to be displayed in the phone book of Android smart phone users. The growing tension between the two companies is slowly coming to a head and Google explained that the latest move was because they’re no longer willing to exempt the social network from data sharing rules.

“Since Facebook contacts cannot be exported from the device, the appearance of integration created a false sense of data portability,” Google said in a statement.

It will affect any users downloading the tasty sounding Gingerbread version of Android – currently only running on Google’s Nexus S and One handsets.