July 2008 comScore Social top 100 Global Networking Rankings

Digging up our brand name on hte internet revealed quite an interesting find today. Somebody pulled data from comScore for the past 12 months, and look who made their list of top social networks:
(aka, us, at #56...) keeping in mind this is global audience, not just the US audience size).

Any surprises for you in this list?

1 MYSPACE.COM*
2 Blogger
3 FACEBOOK.COM
4 WORDPRESS.COM*
5 FLICKR.COM
6 Classmates.com Sites
7 Six Apart Sites
8 REUNION.COM
9 Yahoo! Geocities
10 Lycos Tripod
11 AIM Profiles (w/ history)
12 FREEWEBS.COM (w/ history)
13 imeem
14 Buzznet
15 DIGG.COM
16 WEBSHOTS.COM (w/ history)
17 Yahoo! Groups
18 Yahoo! Buzz
19 BEBO.COM (w/ history)
20 LINKEDIN.COM
21 AOL Hometown (w/ history)
22 TAGGED.COM
23 DEVIANTART.COM
24 KABOODLE.COM (w/ history)
25 AOL Community (w/ history)
26 HI5.COM
27 XANGA.COM
28 PROPELLER.COM (w/ history)
29 SCRIBD.COM
30 MSN Groups
31 eCrush Network (w/ history)
32 GAIAONLINE.COM
33 CAFEMOM.COM (w/ history)
34 BLACKPLANET.COM* (w/ history)
35 CARINGBRIDGE.ORG
36 FRIENDSTER.COM
37 TECHNORATI.COM (w/ history)
38 Yahoo! 360°
39 DADA.NET
40 43THINGS.COM
41 Youku
42 MEETUP.COM
43 PICZO.COM
44 ZIMBIO.COM
45 WeeWorld
46 Orkut
47 ADDTHIS.COM
48 WEBLO.COM
49 BOOMJ.COM
50 SODAHEAD.COM
51 YUKU.COM
52 MULTIPLY.COM
53 XOMBA.COM
54 AOL Journals (w/ history)
55 Curse, Inc.
56 FUNADVICE.COM
57 GROUPRECIPES.COM
58 THISNEXT.COM
59 FANPOP.COM (w/ history)
60 HELIUM.COM
61 EXPERIENCEPROJECT.COM
62 DORMITORY.COM
63 CARE2.COM (w/ history)
64 Stickam
65 SLASHDOT.ORG
66 MOLI.COM
67 ROIWORLD.COM
68 STYLEM.COM
69 ROBLOX.COM
70 CREATEBLOG.COM
71 DELICIOUS.COM
72 IHIPHOP.COM
73 Virb Inc.
74 FUBAR.COM
75 BLOGTHINGS.COM
76 Tribe Networks, Inc.
77 METROFLOG.COM
78 FEARNET.COM
79 MIXERCAST.COM
80 FUNFORMOBILE.COM
81 MOCOSPACE.COM
82 SezWho
83 INVOLVER.COM
84 DOGSTER.COM (w/ history)
85 WEBKINZINSIDER.COM
86 TEAMSUGAR.COM
87 FOTKI.COM
88 SONICO.COM (w/ history)
89 DISABOOM.COM
90 HOVERSPOT.COM
91 56.COM
92 FOTOLOG.COM (w/ history)
93 ZORPIA.COM
94 3DVIA.COM
95 ALUMNICLASS.COM
96 TAGWORLD.COM
97 WAYN.COM (w/ history)
98 STEAMCOMMUNITY.COM
99 CHAT-AVENUE.COM
100 MIGENTE.COM* (w/ history)

Yes, as it happens, I *am* a bit of a geek

Seriously, in the last few years since we've been with ServerBeach, their track record with us has been amazing. So, I thought I'd sign up to be a geek of the week and yep, they picked me & my FunAdvice profile mug shot for their site. Thanks, guys, and I look forward to working with you for many years to come.

Does your business want to talk strategery with us? Maybe do a little, you know, biz dev? If so, feel free to drop me a note OR if you have an exceptional offer, give me a ring. Our phone number isn't hard to find. However, if you're yet another "take our dollar CPM cr@p ads and like them" company, then thanks, but not thanks. We'll need at least two dollars to be happy :).

Ever read Machiavelli?

In college, I had the opportunity to study a lot of liberal arts curriculum. One of the more influential writers I studied was Machiavelli. Did you know he advocated the leader of the state assume the faith of the masses, even if that leader didn't personally have such faith? His theory, which you can see at work in most modern "democracies" was that by appearing to be of the faith, the masses would believe even with evidence to the contrary, that such a leader was bound by the same moral code as they.

Now, what does that have to do with FunAdvice?

Well, Machiavelli also advocated both picking powerful friends - and powerful enemies. With that in mind over the last few years for FunAdvice, we've been cultivating friendships with other companies. Business partnerships, mutually beneficial arrangements, chatting with bloggers (read our news page - some AWESOME people have covered us).

Also, we've been cultivating enemies. One of which, Elle columnist Ask E Jean Carroll from Elle magazine, apparently had some jackass try to "gooblebomb" their site for our brand name. I'll say this clearly:

If you honestly think that your massive drop in traffic is going to be slowed by hijacking the brand name of one of your up & coming competitor's (who, by they way, has a 50% bigger audience, AND we're not falling like you are)...well, if you believe that, E Jean Carole, you're sadly mistaken.

Here's a tip for making friends or enemies that Machiavelli would appreciate: if you cannot beat them, you should not make public enemies of them, as they will retaliate and crush you completely.

Game on, bitches.

Please don't panic, maintenance in progress

Boy, do we need to upgrade our messages! First on Friday for our latest release, we didn't have a good page in place (honest, we will next time) and then tonight to do some routine maintenance, we also didn't include a better page.

So in the immortal words of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Don't Panic. :)

We'll be back shortly.