MySpace traffic cut by half

Web monitoring firm ComScore has claimed that only 3.3 million people visited social network MySpace in May 2010, down from 6.5 million in May 2009.

MySpace, which was created in 2003 and at one stage had around 100 million members, has faced stiff competition in the social-networking space, not least from Facebook.

Twitter also overtook MySpace in the popularity stakes in 2009.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought MySpace for $580m (about 285m) in 2005. The site has always had a strong focus on music, launching a free music streaming service in the UK in December 2009.

According to ComScore, there are 38.2 million adult internet users in the UK, with 90 per cent visiting some sort of social-networking site in May 2010.

Facebook this week announced that it had reached the 500 million member mark.