MySpace's seedy side sends users to Facebook

In recent months, Facebook has been beating the crap out of Myspace in the social networking space. In August, MySpace attracted 105.7 million users while Facebook attracted 69.3 million. But the catch is that Facebook saw a huge 33% increase over June's numbers while MySpace actually reported a decline of 7.4%.

Given that all anyone talks about these days is the growth in social networking, these numbers have to pretty scary for MySpace and its parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (NYSE: NWS).

According to Bloomberg, "Facebook won users because the site may be more private. It is designed to encourage people to use true identities, whereas MySpace has more anonymity and has been forced to confront reports of sexual predators on its site."

With both sites coming under the scrutiny of regulators, the perception of Facebook as being less creepy could give the site a boost.

But in the long run, there's probably room for both, and the competition between the sites is being overblown by the media -- it just makes a better story. A lot of college students have profiles on both sites, and each site is great for different things: Facebook is better for networking while MySpace is terrific for personal expression and showing your friends music/videos that you like.