Nielson/NetRatings has issued a study showing that the top 10 social networking sites saw traffic grow 47% over the last year, with MySpace seeing the biggest growth (367% increase) and MSN Spaces (286%) seeing the biggest growth. Hosted blogging systems were included in the study.

One thing to note about those numbers is that while Classmates had one of the lowest positive growth rates at 10%, they spend loads on advertising while MySpace, Youtube, and Facebook haven't spent a penny.

If I recall correctly, a couple years ago Classmates.com was one of the 10 largest spenders on online advertising.

There are plenty of new social networking sites poping up but what get's me why can't myspace there instant messenger working. $580 mill and can't afford to fix instant messenger BAD myspace.
There are so many better ones how about http://cubiclelife.net for example has all the features of myspace plus quizzes, polls, webchat with audio and video oh and hey they have instant messenger. You have a long way to go myspace.