John Battelle covers and opines about Yahoo!’s response to the Hitwise pronouncement of MySpace as the number one site on the US Internet. Basically Yahoo! contends the math (or lack thereof) and presentation of the data were misleading.
Yahoo! also sent me a press statement on the matter:
The report that Hitwise released today with the headline “MySpace Moves Into #1 Position for all Internet Sites” is misleading. The Yahoo! network is made up of many domains and it is not accurate to compare MySpace.com to just Yahoo!’s mail.yahoo.com domain. When taking into account all of Yahoo!’s domains together as an entire network, Yahoo! clearly remains the number one property in terms of audience share, duration share, page view share and days visited per month.
In the U.S. alone, Yahoo! attracts 129 million unique visitors per month, which represents 74 percent of the online population; in comparison, MySpace reaches only 30 percent of the online population with an audience of 52 million unique visitors. In addition, Yahoo! has the largest share of online time spent than any other property: Yahoo! accounts for 13 percent of users’ online time, while MySpace has only 3.2 percent share in users’ online time.
Yahoo! maintains its leadership position as the world’s most trafficked Internet destination online, with a community of more than 500 million unique monthly visitors from around the globe.
(These statistics are according to comScore Media Metrix, June 2006)
Screenwerk 
July 13, 2006 at 6:17 am
I wonder what comscore was thinking with that announcement. Yahoo has plenty to be angry about, because there’s simply no way (in my mind) that MySpace could generate more traffic.
When the rage clears, MySpace will fade as the next new-new thing comes along. Yahoo will continue to build their media empire.
I suppose I’m showing my advanced age (43) and distinct lack of hipness (whitest man in America) by saying that I just don’t “get” MySpace beyond the novelty factor.
Is it just me?
July 13, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Nah not just you Dick – I’m 23 (I imagine on the upper fringers of the target audience), and I could care less about it.
My friends were heavily into Orkut – then they moved en masse to Friendster – and now en masse to MySpace (and the usage seems to already be slowing down).
Lastly, using page impressions as the basis of comparison is silly. MySpace is structured in such a way to suck the maximum # of pageviews out of a user. It is the unique count that matters (and profitability that really matters), and in that area, I am sure Yahoo and Google give it a beating.
September 8, 2006 at 9:47 pm
[…] With so much riding on market share and momentum, web traffic has become highly politicized. One recent example of that was when Hitwise issued a press release that MySpace had surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited US domain online. This drew a prompt response from Yahoo!, which issued its own release seeking to clarify the numbers and reaffirm that it was the number #1 US destination online. […]
September 11, 2006 at 1:51 pm
[…] Traffic is controversial. With so much riding on market share and momentum, web traffic has become highly politicized. One recent example of that was when Hitwise issued a press release that MySpace had surpassed Yahoo! Mail as the most visited US domain online. This drew a prompt response from Yahoo!, which issued its own release seeking to clarify the numbers and reaffirm that it was the number #1 US destination online. […]