• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, March 15, 2007

Despite MySpace's continued dominance in social networking, smaller alternative sites are gaining traction, according to research released Wednesday by Hitwise.

Sites showing the biggest increases in visits included the photo sharing and journal community Buzznet--up 148.4%--and social multimedia site iMeem, up 145.7%, from January to February. (For context, Buzznet has a 0.18% share of all social networking site visits, while iMeem registers 0.73%. MySpace, on the other hand, has an 80.74% share.)

Other fast-growing sites included Hoverspot, up 19.6%--which awards points to content contributors--and Bebo, up 17.8%.

"While MySpace is still by far the dominant social networking Web site, sites like Buzznet and iMeem are succeeding in building communities around music and other media," LeeAnn Prescott, director of research at Hitwise, said in the report. "The social networking category will continue to grow as new sites emerge with unique offerings."

Category leaders MySpace and Facebook also grew from January to February, with visits increasing 10.2 and 9.1%, respectively.

MySpace, which still controls an 80% market share, saw traffic rise 10.2% from January to February, and 107% year-over-year.

Facebook meanwhile, saw traffic for January to February rise 9.1%. Only Facebook, with 10.3%, and Bebo, with 1.18%, managed to score market shares greater than 1% apart from MySpace.

The overall social networking market grew a reasonable 11.5% from January to February alone, and 87% year-over-year, Hitwise reported. That said, the market still only draws 6.5% of all Web visits.

Still, nearly half--48%--of brand marketers plan to use social marketing tactics in the next year, compared to 38% who did so last year, according to findings from Jupiter Research released earlier this week.

Advertiser adoption of social tactics will increase competition for attention on social sites among users who are engaged in intense social activity with their peers, according to Emily Riley, Jupiter Research analyst and lead author of the report.

In addition to engaging brand advocates to involve social networkers, brand marketers must target interests and activities that attract frequent networkers, and earn trust by mastering social networking flow, Jupiter reported.

Also earlier this week, eMarketer estimated that social network ad spending will reach $865 million this year, and nearly $2.2 billion in 2010--driven partly by the globalization of MySpace and the proliferation of niche networks.