Facebook may have started as a site geared toward the college crowd, but as the most popular social network in the US, it has broadened its user base considerably. The Nielsen Company reported that in June 2009 Facebook had a unique US audience of more than 87 million people, compared with fewer than 63 million who visited MySpace that month.
According to Inside Facebook, the fastest-growing group of users in August 2009 were males ages 13 to 17, whose numbers increased by 14.5%, followed by men ages 45 to 54, rising 12.8%. Among women, the highest growth was in the 45 to 54 and 55 to 65 age ranges, which were up 11.8% and 11%, respectively.
Female Facebook users of all ages outnumber their male counterparts. But new male users flocked to the social network at a faster rate than females in almost every age group, tightening the site’s gender gap somewhat.
Inside Facebook reported that 57% of the site’s users, or about 45.4 million people, were women, compared with some 34.3 million who were men.
The largest block of Facebook users is still ages 18 to 25, followed by 26-to-34-year-olds. Taken together, those groups made up 51% of the user population. But young adults also have the lowest rates of uptake, indicating that the age disparity may continue to close, along with the gender gap.
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Check out today’s other article, “Are Women Really Ignoring Social Network Marketing?”