Performance of social networking sites – Index from Keynote Systems for July 2011
Keynote Systems, the expert in Internet and mobile cloud monitoring, monitors the top 10 UK social networking sites on a monthly basis and analyses how these sites perform compared to their competitors. By Robert Castley.
By Robert Castley
Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and MySpace all performed extremely well this month in terms of availability and speed, making up the top five in both categories. Facebook had the fastest average response time for July with an impressive 0.57 seconds, while YouTube achieved the top spot for availability with an almost perfect 99.99% success rate for the month.
Bebo and WAYN struggled this month with availability as they were the only two sites monitored to achieve an average availability of less than 99%, with WAYN coming in 10th with 96.73%. Bebo also struggled with response times with an average speed of 5.28 seconds, almost two seconds slower than the site in 9th place.
People that like to share information with their friends via social networking sites have a huge amount of choice regarding the outlets that they sign up to and use. While Google+ is still currently in its closed beta trial stage to work out the kinks, its emergence onto the mass market is likely to shake up the world of social networking. Many commentators are already discussing the benefits of the new network compared to existing sites and so social networks that are currently struggling with performance and availability will have to look for ways to improve their offering if they hope to retain site visitors.

About the author
Robert Castley has been solutions consultant at Keynote for over two years. Prior to working at Keynote, Robert worked as a Professional Services Consultant at a document management company, Macro 4, where he worked on developing custom web interfaces.
Robert is passionate about web performance and optimisation and has over 10 years of web development experience. One of his proudest achievements is developing one of the world’s most popular Open Source Content Management Systems to the masses – Mambo, which now lives on as Joomla! Robert has a BTEC National Diploma in Computer Studies.
About the company
Keynote Systems is the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud monitoring. It provides companies with solutions for continuously improving the online experience. Founded in 1995, Keynote provides testing, monitoring and measurement products and services for any enterprise including online portals, e-commerce sites, B2B sites, mobile operators and mobile infrastructure providers. Keynote products and services help companies improve customer experience in four areas: Web performance, mobile quality, streaming and real user experience testing.
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