• TechCrunch, Friday, August 22, 2008 11:02 AM

Thanks to a brilliant international expansion policy, whereby users do language translations for them, Facebook has quickly surpassed News Corp.'s MySpace as the largest social network on the Web. However, TechCrunch notes that Mark Zuckerberg and co. are still 36 million users behind MySpace in the U.S., and that at current growth rates, it would take 18 years to make up that kind of ground. As far as money goes, MySpace has a more monetizable user base. While Facebook has more overall users, the most lucrative audiences come from the U.S., U.K., and Japan, where the online ad market is more mature.

So why is MySpace able to maintain its lead in the U.S.? It's all about music, says Michael Arrington, pointing out that the News Corp. site hosts millions of artist and band pages, which are collectively viewed by around 35 million people per month. And next month, MySpace will roll out the new MySpace Music venture with the major record labels, allowing users to stream their music catalogs live and for free. Merchandise, downloads, concert tickets and ring tones will also be features of the site.

Facebook, on the other hand, doesn't really have a music strategy. Bands can create Facebook pages, but they can't stream or sell music. It does have the application iLike, which runs through a partnership with Rhapsody, but even so, Arrington notes that the social music space is still totally dominated by MySpace, and likely will be for a long time.

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