Is MySpace Really Bigger than Yahoo?
On Tuesday, Techcrunch reported that MySpace has semi-officially overtaken Yahoo as having the most page views of any internet property. This revelation was met with moderate fan fare and other prominent industry blogs like GigaOm and Searchblog did not even go there. There is good reason to take this news with a grain of salt, as it is misrepresentative and hides some very important facts.
Do Page Views Matter?
Page views are a useful metric for judging the volume of interaction with a web site, but comparing page views can also lead to erroneous conclusions. Let’s explore some common pitfalls.
MySpace and Inflated Page Views
In the user interaction and usability world, much has been made of the lackluster user experience of MySpace. Indeed, many technophiles and designers cannot understand why so many people actually use MySpace despite the fact that it is aesthetically unappealing, slow, and riddled with vestigial clicks. This is a fascinating enigma with complex answers, but the important thing to consider from a marketing standpoint is the vestigial clicks. It has been suggested that MySpace is in no hurry to streamline navigation because the current information architecture inflates page views. And it seems many analysts and industry watchers keep falling for this trick.
Although a brilliant marketing move on the part of MySpace, it should be a big red flag that each user is taken to a marketing splash page and is forced to navigate to their own profile page. Other social networking web sites take users directly to their profile page upon logging in.
Another important point that has to be made is that MySpace is very static while many of Yahoo’s web services are dynamic. By using
Declining Page Views Are Great
By making services such as Yahoo Mail more dynamic and self-contained, Yahoo made a very conscious effort to reduce page views to better the user experience and increase user lifetime. What matters is not how many page views Yahoo’s users generate but how long they stay on their web properties, how long they will be loyal to those services, and how many ads are displayed per average session as well as their CPM (cost per one thousand ad impressions).
Enough with the Hype Already
Undoubtedly, MySpace continues to grow and is here to stay as a hugely important player in the internet game. It is exciting to see who is growing and who is struggling, but let’s forget all the empty hype of page views and pull ourselves away from obsessively observing who will have the highest page views this week. The real question that we should be asking is who will find the magic formula of attracting, engaging, and retaining users that will ultimately lead to the highest levels of success.
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