MySpace has 70 million U.S. users who log on every month, only somewhat fewer than Facebook’s 90 million and still more than Twitter’s 20 million in the U.S. Its user base is not really growing, but 70 million users is nothing to sneeze at.

So why doesn’t MySpace get the attention it deserves?

The fascinating answer, acquired by studying a dataset of 100,000 MySpace users, is that they largely populate smaller cities and communities in the south and central parts of the country. Piskorski rattles off some MySpace hotspots: “Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Florida.”

They aren’t in Dallas but they are in Fort Worth. Not in Miami but in Tampa. They’re in California, but in cities like Fresno. In other words, not anywhere near the media hubs (except Atlanta) and far away from those elite opinion-makers in coastal urban areas

Read more