Skip to main content

LinkedIn now No. 2 social network in the US

linked-in-social-network
Image used with permission by copyright holder

These days the “other” social network everyone is talking about is, of course, Google+. While we were all busy chattering on about Circles and Hangouts, however, professional-tinged network LinkedIn quietly became the second-most popular social network in the United States, after Facebook. That pushes poor MySpace back to No. 3, in the US — but not worldwide.

According to a report from CNN, LinkedIn’s America-based web traffic during the month of June was 33.9 million unique visitors, based on numbers from comScore. During the same time period, MySpace managed to amass 33.5 million US visitors, down from about 34.9 million visitors in May.

As impressive as that may sound, those numbers don’t give MySpace a fair break. MySpace inexplicably still has an estimated 130 million active users. LinkedIn has about 115 million. Twitter, by comparison, has around 200 million; Facebook, 750 million. (Google+ is still in beta, and is only about two weeks old; it has an estimated 10 million visitors and counting.)

Still, US traffic to MySpace is down a full 50 percent from what it was at the same time last year. Because of its plummeting popularity, the company was recently sold for a mere $35 million to a partnership that consists of Specific Media and singer/actor Justin Timberlake. That amount is down from the $545 million News Corp paid for the site in 2005. The new owners hope to capitalize on Timberlake’s celebrity and sway in the music industry to boost MySpace back to a position of prominence.

LinkedIn, on the other hand, just launched its initial public offering (IPO) back in May, and its stock price more than doubled at the opening bell, popping from an initial price of $45 to more than $90. At that price, the company was valued at around $3 billion. Today, LinkedIn’s stock is trading at around $100 per share.

Editors' Recommendations

Andrew Couts
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Features Editor for Digital Trends, Andrew Couts covers a wide swath of consumer technology topics, with particular focus on…
X rival Threads could be about to get millions of more users
Instagram Threads app.

Threads -- Meta’s rival to X, formerly Twitter -- has just launched in the European Union (EU), a market with nearly half a billion people.

The app launched in the U.S. to much fanfare in July, with Meta hoping to attract X users disillusioned with the turbulence on the platform since Elon Musk acquired it for $44 billion 14 months ago.

Read more
X (formerly Twitter) returns after global outage
A white X on a black background, which could be Twitter's new logo.

X, formerly known as Twitter, went down for about 90 minutes for users worldwide early on Thursday ET.

Anyone opening the social media app across all platforms was met with a blank timeline. On desktop, users saw a message that simply read, "Welcome to X," while on mobile the app showed suggestions for accounts to follow.

Read more
How to create multiple profiles on a Facebook account
A series of social media app icons on a colorful smartphone screen.

Facebook (and, by extension, Meta) are particular in the way that they allow users to create accounts and interact with their platform. Being the opposite of the typical anonymous service, Facebook sticks to the rule of one account per one person. However, Facebook allows its users to create multiple profiles that are all linked to one main Facebook account.

In much the same way as Japanese philosophy tells us we have three faces — one to show the world, one to show family, and one to show no one but ourselves — these profiles allow us to put a different 'face' out to different aspects or hobbies. One profile can keep tabs on your friends, while another goes hardcore into networking and selling tech on Facebook Marketplace.

Read more