Stickam is the new MySpace?

Written by Ryan Carrigg -- January 19th, 2007

If you have not logged into Stickam.com, it’s probably because you are not a teenager. The New York Times recently reported that Stickam, a new social networking site, has around 50,000 registered users who are between the ages of 14 – 17. For those that are not familiar with Stickam, it is essentially MySpace with Web cameras. Members converse with friends and potential friends via real time video feeds. Obviously there are some concerns and controversies surrounding this site. Inevitably, the combination of young people and web cams equates to some trouble.

But, you have to do something different to take a piece of the pie from the giants like MySpace and Facebook, right? So will Stickam become a major player? Thus far they have seen impressive growth in monthly unique visitors since January, 2006.

Although it may not be catching on at the rampant pace that sites like MySpace and YouTube did, Stickam is no slouch.

But, what about engagement? The whole success of the social networking phenomenon relies upon users spending significant time adding content to their own profiles, reading other’s pages, and browsing new faces. When comparing the average time spent at the top social networking sites we found that stickam is lagging well behind.

Although Stickam is still new, it appears to not be as ‘sticky’ as other social networking/Web 2.0 sites. While the average MySpacer is “Online Now” for almost 28 minutes, Stickams visitors are “Live” for less than 8 minutes.

There you have it, Stickam, the new kid on the block, is attracting visitors but does not seem to be successful in engaging people to spend a significant amount of time. Perhaps at this point we are all social networked out.