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Top 10 US Social-Network, Blog, Web Brand Rankings Issued for Dec.

Perennial leader MySpace.com is again atop the rankings of US social-networking sites, with 60.1 million visitors in December, up from November’s 57.4 million unique visitors and 55.3 million a year earlier, according to custom lists compiled by Nielsen Online.

Google’s Blogger remains atop the blog site rankings with 35.8 million visitors, up from 33.6 million in Nov. and 24.1 million a year earlier.

And Google itself is the web brand rankings, accounting for 117.7 million visitors in December.

Top Social-Networking Sites

Ranked second among social-networking sites, Facebook increased the number of visitors to nearly 22.6 million, up from November’s 22.0 million - and up 72% vs. Dec. 2006, whereas MySpace visitors increased just 9% year over year.

(Compare with Nov. social-network data.)

Top Web Brands

Yahoo follows Google among top web brands, with 113.2 million unique visitors in December. However, time per person on Yahoo properties is nearly three times that of those on Google properties: 3 hours and 5 minutes vs. 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Microsoft and its MSN/Windows Live occupy the third and fourth spots (combined, they would be atop the rankings).

A brand is defined by Nielsen as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Top Blog Sites

Among blog sites, top-ranked Blogger increased its visitors 48% from the year-earlier period, accounting for 35.8 million visitors in Dec., up from 33.6 million visitors in Nov.

WordPress maintained the No. 2 rank it first achieved in Oct., growing 202% from the year-earlier period. In December it accounted for 13.4 million visitors, up from November’s 12.0 million - and up from 4.4 million a year earlier.

(See this table from Nov. to make month-to-month comparisons for blog sites.)