WebProNews

New Hitwise numbers regarding social networks in the UK are out, and from the looks of things, Facebook is on a very nice roll.  Top competitors MySpace and Bebo have been rather less fortunate.

In June of 2007, Facebook controlled a market share of only 15.75 percent.  For the same period this year, that figure had risen to 45.29 percent.  Facebook's doing well in the short term, too, since its May market share was still around 42.88 percent.

Bebo, meanwhile, has seen its market share drop from 33.50 to 25.04 percent on a year-over-year basis.  And about half of MySpace's users have disappeared during its move from 29.37 to 14.75 percent.

Robin Goad notes, "Taking a broader definition of Web 2.0 sites, the declining market share of Bebo and MySpace is even more marked. . . .  YouTube.com overtook Bebo to become the second most visited Web 2.0 property in the UK during June, while Wikipedia overtook MySpace to move into fourth position."

That can't make Rupert Murdoch and Bebo's new owners at AOL happy.  Still, even as monetization becomes important to everybody and everything, these stats may inspire them to put forth some extra energy.