Information Is Beautiful delivers some stats around a point that anyone participating in social media knows: women outnumber men (well, except on Digg).

Of course, we live in a country where about 51 percent of the population is female, and women tend to be more social than men (who tend to be more transactional online). So it should come as no surprise to anyone that women have an edge in social media demographics.

But while everyone from Mashable on down seems to be posting and tweeting about this today, the point that’s being missed is that distaff dominance may be narrowing — at least on the big daddy of social networks, Facebook.

A Rapleaf study last year highlighted by Read Write Web has some numbers that give some interesting perspective on today’s numbers. While women comprise 57 percent of the Facebook audience, that number is down from 61.4 percent last year.

Inside Facebook pretty much agrees with the 57 percent number, but look at the rest of the data: In two of the three largest Facebook demographics — 26-34 and 35-44 — more men than women are coming to the service.

So, yeah: “Women rule the social Web.” But the headline might just as easily have been: “Men catching up to women on the social Web.”

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 8:54 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Social Media.