Compete.com has published statistics showing a whopping 20% drop in pageviews last month alone. Maybe MySpace’s users were taking a summer vacation! Even if they were this is definitely a huge drop. A large portion went to Facebook but based on the Compete.com statistics, the growth doesn’t account for all of MySpace’s drop.

So where are users going? My guess is other social networks, not just Facebook. The bottom line is that if you don’t focus heavily on developing useful features and designs, users are going to find a platform that works better for them. There are still a huge number of sites trying to duplicate Facebook and MySpace’s success. According to the numbers published by Compete.com, they may just have a chance.

Another interesting aspect of Compete.com’s numbers is that Facebook now has the 3rd most pageviews on the internet. MySpace is still the number one. Viewing other people seems to still be one of the most popular past times for internet users. My guess is that YouTube ranks among the top. The only challenge now is coming up with a more effective model for monetizing these users. Google, who isn’t at the top of page views has still managed to continue their dominance in online advertising. As I mentioned earlier yesterday, Facebook needs to hurry up and figure out the solution.