Half of all French and 45 percent of Germans do it. That’s social networking. ComScore (NSDQ: SCOR) data for July has given an insight in to the growth of the phenomenon (and who’s most successful at it) in what George Bush liked to call the Old Europe:-

- France: Here, 13.2 million people visited a social network in July. Skyrock, the national radio station where listeners have created nearly 11 million blogs since 2002, is streets ahead of any social networking competition. The hip-hop/R&B radio site - which is nowadays given over entirely to blogs, chat, friend profiles and messaging - clocked up 9.1 million unique visitors from at home in the month. In a distant second on 2.3 million visitors is MySpace which, on a continent-wide basis, is nevertheless Europe’s top social network. After Badoo in third on 1.3 million visitors, everyone else - even Facebook with just 331,000 and MSN Groups with 310,000 - is chasing up the rear. Netlog, Hi5, Lexode and Dada place higher than those two big names, underscoring the importance of social networking in the native tongue. (More in release).

- Germany: 14.8 million people went to a social network here in July and MySpace, the leader, attracted 3.7 million unique visitors. Domestic sites StudiVZalso and Jux.de were next on 3.1 million and 2.6 million. Facebook doesn’t even register in the top 10, with a paltry 177,000 visitors, and there’s a greater prevalence, too, of Netlog, Stayfriends.de and SevenLoad. (More in release).

There are two themes here. First, MySpace, whilst dominant on a European basis, is easily second best in France. Yet this is not so much down to any particular weakness on its part (indeed, MySpace’s traffic is not massively dissimilar in either France or Germany), but to the overwhelmingly popularity of Skyrock itself. Second, Facebook’s poor showing - whilst the former US college network has become a UK zeitgeist with 7.6 million July visitors, in France and Germany it’s a bit player. This can doubtless be put down to the lack of a local-language offering.