MySpace.com has great numbers but it doesn’t have this kind of density across a single country. LunarStorm has more than 1.2 million active members — enough, writes Thomas Crampton, to make it the largest city in Sweden if they all got together at once. The average member visits twice a day for roughly 25 minutes a day; the question of the day can rack up 150,000 or more responses. Members are discouraged from giving too much personal information.
A little more perspective: “Claiming a youth audience three times larger than MTV in Sweden, two times larger than the entire readership of all of the Swedish evening newspapers combined and more members logging on daily than the total number of young Swedes watching almost every television show, Lunarstorm has become an accidental media titan here.”
Basic access is free; the pro version runs up tp 25 kroner a month and brings in 40 percent of the revenue. Advertising is responsible for 60 percent. Founder Rickard Ericsson, 31, says the 60-employee company has been profitable for three years, netting $1 million (8.3 million kroner) this year.
Earlier this month, LunarStorm made its first foray abroad, launching a UK edition
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