Compete.com Releases January Stats

I can admit it – I geek out over statistics. I pour over my Google Analytics reports, and I ogle Omniture. I also get a little gooshy over seeing compete.com come out with statistics for social networks as a whole… oh, and my hands down guilty pleasure has got to be all of those Twitter statistics measurement APIs floating about like Twitter Grader and Twinfluence. I can’t help it, deep down, I am a dork.

Compete.com recently released their January 2009 statistics for traffic ranks to the various social networks.

I find this endlessly fascinating. Look at Twitter’s skyrocketing hurtle from 22nd place to Top 3. I’m still, and always, surprised that Classmates.com and MyYearBook.com are in 7th and 8th places respectively – I’d always used FaceBook for random connections with classmates I wasn’t friends with then really, and am not now either.

The one thing that is missing from this data, and the thing that would make it of more use is where this traffic is coming from. While these are global sites, the stats only pull from US browser information, and so sites like Orkut and Bebo, whose users are primarily come from continents other than North America, get the short end of the stick with these numbers. 

Like Caroline McCarthy from CNet said, "Still, statistics are like tequila shots. Always take ‘em with a few grains of salt and a slice of lime, and be warned that they may give you headaches." [source] That said, and while I agree with Caroline 100%, I do still love me some tequila.

[image source: Compete]