According to American Technology Research (backed by comScore data and via Om Malik), MySpace is now the second highest trafficked website, after Yahoo! (in page views).  It had 37 million unique visitors in February 2006, up fivefold from a year ago.  These are incredible numbers.  Om suggests that they may be the fastest growing property in internet history.

Mind you, this is not a rising tide story.  Much of this traffic came at the expense of incumbents like MSN and AOL.

MySpace is not the only high-growth story.  Google grew at 21%, and considering how big it is, it’s impressive.  Other winners were Blogger (a Google property), Citysearch and Wikipedia.

Do you remember the Yahoo! ads on TV?  How about Expedia’s TV ads?  The battle between Monster and HotJobs on SuperBowl circa 2000?…  The hidden (or perhaps not so hidden) strength of the high-growth properties of 2006 is that they do not depend on constant pull by advertising.  It’s the property’s natural draw that keeps them growing.

This huge advantage is what sets properties with strong social components apart, and will ensure their success.

All of a sudden, as Robert Young (on Om’s blog) points out:

…Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of MySpace is now widely-recognized as such a brilliant strategic move…