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Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Dougherty - North America

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Social Networking

Facebook pushed past MySpace with Connect

September 09, 2009

Social networking has continued to be one of the most activities online with online users, second only to search (and likely to surpass soon). The Social Networking category has experienced a resurgence of growth as websites like Facebook and Twitter... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:36 PM | (0) | (5)
In Categories Facebook | Social Networking

Craigslist Top Search Term Last Week

March 20, 2009

For the first time in three years, searches for ‘craigslist’ surpassed ‘myspace,’ highlighting the increasing popularity of online classifieds during the economic downturn.U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 05:55 PM | (2) | (3)
In Categories Search Strategies | Social Networking

Photobucket losing market share

March 05, 2009

Posting digital photos online remains a popular activity among many Internet users, particularly as many are increasingly uploading to social networks along with photo sharing websites. Among the photo sharing websites, the market share of visits for the top ranked... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 11:12 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Photo sharing | Social Networking

Facebook Turns 5

February 04, 2009

Today is the fifth anniversary of the launch of Facebook, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at the website’s impact upon the social networking category. Overall, Facebook was the #5 ranked website by total market... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 12:33 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Facebook | Social Media | Social Networking

YouTube surpasses MySpace as Music Destination

January 30, 2009

Yesterday my colleague Heather wrote a blog post about the top searches on YouTube; which are dominated by music-related searches. Along those same lines, I have been monitoring the top websites receiving traffic from a portfolio of 1300 band &... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 04:09 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Music | Social Networking | Video

Inauguration Day Stats

January 22, 2009

The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States was a major event for US Internet users on Tuesday since many needed to rely upon online streaming on news websites to view the event from work.... Continue reading...

Twitter catches up to Digg

January 20, 2009

Twitter has become a popular pastime for many who like to update their daily thoughts and activities, as well as for the voyeurs who just enjoy reading the tweets. Last week, the market share of visits to Twitter surpassed Digg... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:34 PM | (4) | (13)
In Categories Social Media | Social Networking | Twitter

Will searches on new BlackBerry models predict success

October 28, 2008

The recent release of the G1 (aka Google phone) through T-Mobile and soon to be released Blackberry Bold & Storm prompted me to compare search activity among the new handheld devices. We often compare the search volume on new products... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 06:05 PM | (0) | (0)

Geographic divide of social networks

July 23, 2008

Today is Facebook’s F8 conference is taking place in San Francisco, helping to keep the spotlight omnipresent upon the social networking category. In the US, MySpace continues to be the largest social network and the market share of visits was... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 04:10 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Social Networking

School's out! Social networks on the rise

June 10, 2008

Today I am speaking at the Internet Retailer conference at a session called 'New Frontiers: Marketing and Merchandising on Social Media'. Since the discussion could never be complete without a look at the traffic on social networks, I checked to... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 09:58 AM | (1) | (1)

Search & Social Networks neck & neck for video referrals

April 16, 2008

Online video is a hot topic these days with new entrants coming online (e.g. PluggedIn) and out of beta (e.g. Hulu) every day. We are seeing users spend a bit more more time with the video websites, spending an average... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:56 PM | (3) | (4)
In Categories Social Networking | Video

AOL snags Bebo for $850 million

March 13, 2008

Another social network has been purchased, during this round, Time Warner’s AOL unit has acquired Bebo for $850 million. The social networking category has been a continued area of interest, particularly among media and technology companies hoping to take advantage... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 01:20 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Social Networking

Facebook traffic declines – much ado about nothing?

February 25, 2008

Maybe it’s the zombies or the poking, but there has been a decline in the market share of visits for Facebook. The website has experienced considerable growth over the past 24 months and the market share of visits has recently... Continue reading...

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 03:57 PM | (2) | (2)
In Categories Social Networking

Heather Dougherty

Director, Research at Hitwise.