• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 6, 2006

MySpace is getting a middle-aged spread. More than half the visitors to the popular social network site are now 35 or over--up from less than 40 percent last year.

The proportion of MySpace's audience between the ages of 12 and 24, meanwhile, has dropped to 30 percent from 44.3 percent over the last year, according to a study by comScore Media Metrix released Thursday. The comScore research compared audience demographics among top social sites, aiming to dispel the notion that they are the exclusive domain of teens.

While MySpace and Friendster skew older--with people 25 and older accounting for roughly 70 percent of their user bases--more than one-third of Facebook visitors are 18 to 24, as expected for a college-oriented site. Xanga was the most popular with teens, drawing 20 percent of its audience from that age group. The comScore figures encompass all visitors to the sites, not just registered members.

"While the top social networking sites are typically viewed as directly competing with one another, our analysis demonstrates that each site occupies a slightly different niche," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, in a prepared statement.

For marketers, the research suggests that MySpace is increasingly becoming a mainstream Internet portal. "The type of advertising it has today is for the youth market," said Sarah Fay, president of Aegis' interactive ad agency network, Isobar, U.S. "But as we move forward, I'm sure that brands are going to start to speak to other types of audiences on MySpace."

She added that social networking has become a phenomenon like blogging that transcends group boundaries. "It's a new type of behavior that's being adopted throughout society, so it only stands to reason that MySpace is growing its demographic," she said. Overall, unique visitors to MySpace increased to 55.7 million in August--up from 21.8 million in the year-earlier period.

The same shift toward an older audience could begin to unfold at Facebook as the social site initially aimed at college students opens its doors for anyone to join. About one-third of visitors to Facebook already are in the 35 to 54 age bracket, according to comScore.

Whatever the demographic breakdown, Fay noted that the key challenge for marketers on social sites is being able to attract consumers to a branded page with creative ad campaigns. "You have to be able to draw people in as opposed to going out to get them," said Fay, whose company ran a promotion for Adidas on MySpace during the World Cup that brought 55,000 "friends" to the company.

MySpace officials could not be reached for comment Thursday about the comScore study.