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Content delivery networks (CDNs) aren’t a topic we often cover at Mashable, but considering that they route most of the Web’s traffic, they can provide good insight into market trends. Today one of the largest CDNs, Akamai Technologies, released some data relating to the traffic they carry across their network for various social media companies.
The company counts 7 of the the top 10 social networking sites as customers and claims that 92% of traffic to such destinations was carried across their network in December. Overall, traffic to these sites increased more than 5x over the past year, with Akamai delivering more than one million requests per second (!). Given the growth rates in unique visitors we've seen from the reporting companies like comScore, which are healthy but not quite in the 5x magnitude, it can be surmised that a lot of the traffic growth is coming in the form of people spending more time on these sites, while also adding widgets and apps which increases the bandwidth being consumed on Akamai's network.
In addition to top social networks MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo, Akamai also counts widget and application developers Slide and RockYou as customers. According to Akamai, RockYou is now serving more than 180 million daily widget views, giving it a reach that is comparable to many more traditional online ad networks.
What exactly is a “Content Delivery Network” you might ask? Here’s a cool diagram that explains the concept, from another player in the space, Limelight Networks:
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