Facebook overtakes MySpace for first time

And incurs the wrath of Rupert Murdoch

23 June 2008 10:04 GMT / By Katie Scott

Rupert Murdoch is having a rather large sulk because Facebook visitors have overtaken those visiting MySpace, the website he bought for $580m only 3 years ago.

Facebook had 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162% on May 2007, according to the latest Comscore figures.

MySpace drew 114.6m uniques, with visitors growing by only 5% since May 2007.

This is significant as the first time Facebook has overtaken MySpace, after figures in April saw them neck and neck.

Murdoch was tetchy about the results claiming that Facebook has "done a great job of being flavour of the month the last six months of last year", but that the site isn't a real social network, but "just a directory".

In separate news, Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer talked down the possibility of that his company was going to bid for Facebook.

"People don't understand what they're talking about", he told The Financial Times. "At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications."