MySpace, the social network that many joined before Facebook defined the social networking era, is still around. Not only is it still around, it's actually doing quite well in terms of generating traffic among its lucrative 17 to 25-year-old target audience.
MySpace brought in 50.6 million unique visitors in the US this past November, good for a whopping 575 percent increase during the same period a year earlier according to a recent interview with Tim Vanderhook, chief executive of Viant Inc., Specific Media's parent company. Specific Media owns MySpace after buying it for $35 million from News Corp. in 2011.
The social networking pioneer reinvented itself in early 2013 as a hub for music and entertainment, a bet that's clearly paying dividends today. The once prolific site hasn't given up on its roots, however, as much of the original content that early users added is still lingering around - and that's good news for traffic.
The early content I'm referring to, of course, is photographs. For many, MySpace was their first social network - a place to converse with friends, make new friends and upload pictures of good times had. Those photos have been sitting on MySpace's severs for the past decade, almost as if they were locked away in a digital time capsule.
Fast-forward to today - there's a new trend sweeping current social media called Throwback Thursday. The idea is that, each Thursday, you post an old photo or two of yourself or some friends on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. A lot of these old photos, as you've probably guessed by now, are being plucked from MySpace.