Ghost of Midnight

Social Network Traffic Numbers Inflated?

MediaVidea reported recently…

News Item #1: A detailed research from HP reveals that 43% of Facebook messages are spam. Marcus from Plentyoffish dating site puts it correctly that you would similar figures on any other social networking sites.

NewsItem #2: A recent Comscore study reports that 3 out of 10 U.S. Internet users delete cookies, which means that sites may be overestimating audiences by a factor as high as 2.5.

Both pieces of information have implications for advertisers who use cookie-based visitor counting and rates of social networking site usage.

I wonder how accurate this is?  If this ascertain is on target, how widely known is it?  It seems remarkable to me.  It might help explain in part the incredibly positive response to Front Porch Forum we’ve found in our initial service area (greater Burlington, Vermont).  Subscribe to your neighborhood’s forum and you get no spam… just your neighborhood forum in your inbox every few days.  And, our audience is very clear… we have contact information on each one… simple to get an accurate count.  This may also contribute to the initial high level of interest among small local business in sponsoring a variety of our neighborhood forums.