Continuing this unintended theme of social communities for the week, I saw some stunning numbers on MicroPersuasion today regarding MySpace.

• It is the largest online social networking portal on the web
• It has 61 + million registered users with 21+ million unique visitors (media metrix)
• It’s the second largest destination on the web, by page views
•  It splits 50.2% male, 49.8% female
• They reach more men online than ESPN.com. They reach more females online than iVillage.
• The primary age demo is 16-34
• They have 1.4 million registered bands, 350,000 band blogs
• The site attracts 220,000 new registrants daily
• There are 50,000 groups including fashion, health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc.
• And last but not least it costs $35,000 to launch a profile for marketing purposes.

Pretty incredible numbers. That last one is fascinating to me, since it begins to answer the question “What else is there besides banner ads for online advertising?”

On this topic, Jason Calacanis posted an interesting look at whether MySpace is a fad. The short version is yes, MySpace is a fad. But like Jason says: “fads are what we call revolutions before we know what they are”. Talk about your money lines!

And in case you haven’t seen it, check out Danah’s article: Friendster lost steam. Is MySpace a fad?