( Mashable ) -- Twitter 's number of monthly unique visitors finally surpassed that of MySpace in August . Though it ranked third among social networking sites , Twitter ranked # 50 in the list of top 50 properties overall . The numbers were crunched by the marketing research firm comScore . Twitter 's lead over MySpace was marginal -- 96 million versus 95 million -- but the trend over time paints a prettier picture of the microblogging service . Between August 2009 and August 2010 , Twitter grew 76 percent while MySpace dropped 17 percent . It 's apples and oranges , though . Twitter is now a social publishing and news discussion platform more than anything , and MySpace is attempting to position itself as a destination for young people to discover new music , movies and games . Both appeal to brands that want to reach new people , but they 're very different tools for very different kinds of brands . Both sites look quite small next to Facebook , which reached 598 million monthly uniques in the same month . It grew 54 % over the past year . The second most popular social network , Windows Live , managed 140 million uniques , putting it closer to Twitter than to Facebook . Twitter has been moving quickly to capitalize on this growth . First it announced a new version of the front page that will make it easier to access photos , videos and other information without using other websites or programs . Many of Twitter 's users rarely visit the website at all ; they instead use desktop software or third-party interfaces on other websites to access their tweets . For that reason , Twitter 's actual reach might be higher than the numbers from comScore imply . A revamped website could lead people to use Twitter.com instead of whatever they 're using right now however , increasing the number of unique visitors the site receives now and in the future . Twitter already cashed in on its numerous users with Promoted Tweets , and now it will reach out to businesses with the `` Promoted Accounts '' system , which allows companies to buy visibility among their target market 's `` Who to Follow '' suggestions . © 2011 MASHABLE.com . All rights reserved .
Twitter 's number of monthly unique visitors surpassed that of MySpace in August , comScore says . Between August 2009 and August 2010 , Twitter grew 76 percent while MySpace faded . Twitter 's actual reach might be higher than the numbers from comScore imply .