How did MySpace develop such popularity with the 35+ crowd? What value are these old people deriving from MySpace? Do they have their top 8 work associates (or grandkids) on their front page?

The key quote:

The most significant shift has occurred among teens 12-17, who accounted for 24.7 percent of the MySpace audience in August 2005, but today represent a much lower 11.9 percent of the site’s total audience. Conversely, Internet users between the ages of 35-54 now account for 40.6 percent of the MySpace visitor base, an 8.2 percentage point increase during the past year.

I wish the comScore article talked more about the context around these fascinating numbers. What’s the first derivative here? In other words, are teens leaving MySpace en masse such that the remaining users still visiting MySpace with regularity are adults? Or has the adult audience growth been so explosive that it is starting to dominate number of teens visiting the site? Also, what (if any) social networks are seeing a boost from the missing teen traffic.
What are the implications?

The following opinion is admittedly very subjective, but there are two segments of users that are solid indicators of the “next big thing:” alpha-geeks and teens. So, where are the teens going? A new network? Just getting bored?

I don’t have answers to these questions, and I’m curious to see how these numbers continue to move over the next few months.