Friendster Still Dominates in Singapore

According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, Friendster (www.friendster.com) is the top social networking website visited by Singapore Internet users. While the rise of MySpace has been observed in global online markets, Friendster retains its loyal following in Singapore.

Friendster ranked at the top position for social networking websites, with 56.3% market share for the week ending July 15, 2006. Friendster has held on to this top position for more than a year, although its market share at the same time last year was 70.35% for the week ending July 16, 2005.

The entrance of MySpace has had a significant impact on the Singapore market. MySpace ranked at 2nd position with 10.6% market share in social networking websites for the week ending July 15, 2006. Video sharing website, YouTube (www.youtube.com) has also had an impact on the share of Singaporeans' online activity, increasing its market share dramatically by 529% from the start of 2006 in all categories. YouTube accounted for 1.6% of Friendster's upstream traffic for the week ending July 15, 2006.

Hitwise Search Intelligence which reports on the search terms Singaporeans use to navigate the web across search engines, further reveals that Friendster still holds significant mind share amongst Singapore Internet users, with 'friendster' the second most popular search term for all categories, following only 'yahoo', for the 24 weeks ending July 15, 2006. The search term 'youtube' trails closely at #13 position.

Friendster's new "Watch Video" feature which allows users to share media files and their recently awarded social networking technology patent will contribute towards buffering the competition posed by YouTube. As visitors to social networking websites can be fickle, demonstrated by the intense competition between MySpace and Bebo in the UK and NZ markets, Friendster will need to continue to innovate to keep its brand alive amongst its network of users.

Global video-sharing phenomenon YouTube (www.youtube.com) has entered the top 20 sites in Singapore for the first time this month, highlighting a global boom in the popularity of social networking and multimedia-sharing websites in Singapore and around the world.

Following on from news this week that MySpace (www.myspace.com) has become the #1 site in the United States, YouTube has reached #19 out of all sites monitored by Hitwise Singapore for June 2006. The site has experienced a substantial and consistent growth in traffic since the beginning of 2006, with its rank increasing by 75% from January to June based on monthly data.

While still trailing far behind YouTube, Google's similar offering, Google Video (video.google.com) has also boosted its rank significantly since the start of the year. The site was ranked at #602 in January 2006, and now ranks at #381 out of all sites monitored by Hitwise.

Fast Mover - Coldplay

www.coldplay.com


Position on July 8: 12,182
Position on July 10: 2,209
Positions jumped: 9,973

As chart-topping British band Coldplay took the stage at Singapore's giant Indoor Stadium on Monday July 10, Singaporean Internet users flocked to the band's website - making Coldplay (www.coldplay.com) one of the fastest-moving sites on Hitwise Singapore.

The show, part of the band's massive 'Twisted Logic' world tour, inspired fans to log on to the site in record numbers. Coldplay (www.coldplay.com) increased its market share by almost 990% between July 9 and July 10 according to Hitwise daily data, becoming the third most popular site in the Hitwise Music - Bands & Artists category with 3% market share.

Overall, the site increased its rank by almost 10,000 places out of all sites monitored by Hitwise in that two day period, ranking just outside the top 2,000 sites on Hitwise Singapore on July 10.

Category Spotlight: Computers and Internet - Software

The Software category includes the websites of software creators, manufacturers and distributors, plus game creators, software archives, software news and review sites. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 22/07/2006 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Top 10 Computers and Internet - Software sites for Singapore audiences		Local Competitiveness Index
Microsoft McAfee US WindowsMedia.com Yahoo! Messenger Download Globe7.com MSN Web Messenger McAfee Security Australia Google Desktop Search Apple Computer Symantec Corporation		3.1% of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, July 2006