myYearbook.com Growing Faster Than Myspace and Overtakes Friendster According to Media Metrix
Teenage Founders Vow to Do to Myspace What Google Did to Yahoo!

myYearbook.com, a Spring Break project began by 2 high school students in New Jersey, is growing faster than Myspace.com, according to the latest report by comScore Media Metrix, a rating service for web sites.

Media Metrix reports myYearbook.com is growing by 44% per month, outstripping Myspace growth rates (see charts below). In addition, the report shows, myYearbook, in its 4th month since expanding beyond 1 high school, has already overtaken social networking pioneer Friendster among high school and college students.

"I want to do to Myspace what Google did to Yahoo," notes myYearbook creator, David Cook, a seventeen-year old senior at Montgomery High School in Skillman, NJ. "Myspace search is awful. The site is slow, and there are flashing ads everywhere. I don't think anyone at Myspace cares about users one bit. It's all about the advertising and making as much money for the Corporation as possible. Just look at all the talking smiley ads. Obviously they don't care about users at all."

In contrast, myYearbook has no ads. It has been growing virally ever since David and his sister Catherine, a high school junior, launched it during Spring Break in 2005. "Most of the ideas for myYearbook we had at our lunch table," notes Dave. We launched only in our high school so we could perfect the site and come up with a lot of ideas for new stuff. Still, I never expected to have to go from 1 server in September to 12 servers so fast."

Dave says high school is not his first priority any more. "It definitely gets in the way of everything else in my life. But having to manage 12 servers and create new features is a lot more fun than it sounds and I love what I do. The only thing I care about right now is beating myspace."

The two teenage entrepreneurs have big plans. "I think I actually know how to create a business model around social networking without a bunch of flashy banners. I don't know why it took Friendster so long to figure it out," says David.

For the full Media Metrix report see: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/8214.asp