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We all knew that MySpace was the dominant social networking darling, but we may not have realized that MySpace controls almost 80% of the social networking market. Yikes!

MySpace Gets 80% of Social Network Visits

The numbers come courtesy of Hitwise's LeeAnn Prescott, who says that in April MySpace received 79.7% of all social networking visits.

The amazing numbers don't stop there, though. MySpace provided 25% of the traffic for all the other top 19. It's interesting in and of itself that users maintain more than one social networking profile, but it's jarring to know that a quarter of the competition's visits come directly from MySpace.

News Corp.'s favorite son is quite commanding indeed.

Facebook is the nearest competitor, claiming over 11% of the social networking market, compared with Bebo, in third place, with just 1.28%.

Don't count them out yet, though. In the past six months, since Facebook opened up beyond just college students to include the entire Web, the site has grown by 106%. Bebo grew by 184% in the past year.

Facebook sends approximately 3% of upstream traffic to its 19 competitors, an increase of 185% since September.

"Opening up to the entire Internet audience had a positive effect for Facebook" said LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise.

"Clickstream data indicate that users at other social networking sites may be experimenting with Facebook as an alternative site, which may help it attain critical mass among non-collegiate users."

Top Ten Social Networks:

1. MySpace
2. Facebook
3. Bebo
4. Imeem
5. BlackPlanet.com
6. Tagged
7. Yahoo! 360
8. Xanga
9. hi5
10. Gaia Online