Last week Facebook announced how much traffic it received, as well as noting that the farm simulator FarmVille had more visitors than Twitter.
At a recent conference in the UK, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated that the applications on the website were mind blowing:
“Applications make up a huge part of Facebook. There are over 90,000 applications on Facebook. 69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that’s more users than Twitter.”
FarmVille also brings in a higher revenue than Twitter, earning £614,150 ($10,000,00) PER DAY from users buying $20 tractors, and that’s not mentioning other items that can be bought and £307,110 ($500,000) made for charity.
Twitter in comparison, although unclear, is rumoured to have approximately 18 million users, with 55 million unique visits per month. Their revenue, in comparison, is a modest £245,516 ($400,000). This amount may soon rise with the introduction of paid-for premium accounts. These figures do not indicate whether third party clients such as Tweetie, TweetDeck or Twitterific have been taken into account.
Although FarmVille and Twitter are very different types of social networking, it comes as a slight surprise that a game where a user has to pay to reap the better benefits of the game outruns a site that’s free. Then again, when placed on a website which attracts 200 billion page views per month, it’s hardly a surprise.
Facebook also noted that its key demographic had shifted recently to the 35+ age group, a demographic also held by Twitter.
Twitter is one of the fastest growing social network websites on the web (Twitter is currently ranking third in the social networking charts, behind MySpace and Facebook), if various reports are to be believed, and the differences between networking on a game like FarmVille and Twitter are vast. The figures should also to be expected, because at present Twitter is still a much smaller website than Facebook, which can sometimes be forgotten amongst the hype and tight-knit community surrounding it.
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Someone should stop them!
This comment was originally posted on FriendFeed
I play Farmville and can say that you don’t really need to spend any money to enjoy the game. The paid items are just decorations and not essential to the game in any way. That being said, I can’t believe that the game makes that much money!
Jeez, maybe Twitter should charge users for things like changing your profile background or if you want to change your profile picture more than four times a year. If Farmville is an indication, that’d rake in the dough.
I think Twitter and Facebook are both useful social networking tools in their own right. It is amazing to see how many “online” farmers there are- I hope this is an indication that people are more interested in learning about where their food comes from! Here is a fun Youtube video comparing real-world farming with Farmville: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYc21ogh1M0
Interesting trends
;]
math on currency and in respect to the article is way off.
Excellent post. We are always following the news on FaceBook and FarmVille. It is truly incredible how this little game became so huge for the world.
Thank again for putting this out.
Rhonda
i think farmville is a very good game. it not about guns or knifes . or fighting. it is very relaxing. it nice and easy for young kids. so keep up with good work. by way it keep me busey. thank you joe.
Just a little post to share an amazing tool : Farmer Extreme Manager.
Perfect to dominate FarmVille for free
http://tinyurl.com/farmer-extreme-manager
;-)
After reading your post.., I remember a song entitled “The way we were” Great post..
Thanks for your post. I tried just that yesterday. Now my only problem is I need 4 more neighbors in order to expand my farm.
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