Top MySpace Layouts

Part of the fun of working at Rockyou as the biz dev guy is doing research on the social networking industry. While Rockyou leads in providing slideshows and other flash-based personalization widgets to MySpace, hi5 and other social network users, profile layouts (from the likes of Freeweblayouts and Pimp-my-profile) are actually more popular than slideshows, countdown timers, GIF icons, alphas or any other single 'pimp' application.

Over the past two months I've been compiling a running tally of MySpace profiles, getting to know how Rockyou sits with competitors and potential partners. Now that I've run past 1000 profiles, thought it'd be interesting to share some data.

First off, over 52% of MySpace profiles have some 'branded' layout embedded. That leaves nearly half of MySpace users without a formatted layout, or with a picture they uploaded themselves as a background. In addition, across those ~1000 profiles, there were over 100 layout providers. Think about that for a sec. For anyone interested in entering the profile layout space, there's obviously a TON of competition (if not a lot of startup cost). That said the top 10 layout providers accounted for a third of all layouts, so concentration is definitely occurring as the viral marketing effect takes place. The top 10 were as follows.

Layout Provider Market Share
1) Freeweblayouts 7%
2) Hotfreelayouts 7%
3) Pimp-my-profile 3%
4) mygen.co.uk 2%
5) myspacesupport 2%
6) Killerkiwi.net 2%
7) Pyzam 2%
8) MySpacePimper 2%
9) Freecodesource 2%
10) Nuclearcentury 2%

Obviously, Freeweblayouts and Hotfreelayouts are leaders in the space, with Pimp-my-profile growing quickly as a strong third. Hotfreelayouts (owned by x92.net) states they have 6.5MM unique users per month alone. What differentiates these providers from the rest? For all three, each have thousands of highly stylized, design-rich layouts for social network users. Pimp-my-profile also offers users to build and submit their own layouts to their site as well. But frankly, what maintains leadership in this hotly contested social networking 'pimp' space is viral marketing. All three were some of the first entrants to providing layouts and their early lead, coupled with a wide variety of dynamic, rich designs, generated significant enough buzz to drive and keep ongoing growth.

At Rockyou we're big believers in the impact of viral marketing, having spent $0 in marketing to reach over 6MM registered users and nearly 10MM unique visitors per month looking for greater self-expression online. We're currently working to support the growth of partners and branded sponsors looking to drive awareness and adoption with social network users (a significant % are women ages 16-30). If we can help, just send me an email at ro@rockyou.com.