Social networking booming with doubling of online profiles

Facebook is the most viewed site in Britain, according to Ofcom research
Richard Wray
guardian.co.uk, Friday 16 October 2009 00.05 BST

The online social networking boom shows no signs of abating, with almost twice as many British internet users having an online profile than two years ago, helping to make Facebook the most viewed website in the UK, according to new research.
As more people, especially older people, are getting online, they are experimenting with social networking and blogging, according to regulator Ofcom. More people are using the internet to create their own content than ever before with 38% of online users having a social networking profile, compared with 22% in 2007.
There has, however, been a drop-off in the number of people who regularly use the web to find information for their work or study – from 48% two years ago to 35% – while the economic downturn has also led to a drop in the number of British consumers who go online to buy goods.
But it is not just people with a profile who are looking at social networking sites. Ofcom's survey of adult media literacy shows that some 41% of web users look at a social networking site daily, compared with 30% two years ago, to keep up with family and friends. After a host of scare stories, meanwhile, web users are becoming more aware of who can see their profiles with three quarters of those who have one, saying it can only be seen by family and friends - up from 48% in 2007.
The watchdog's latest audit of the nation's digital habits comes as web traffic watcher Experian Hitwise will today publish its latest research into social networking. It shows that Facebook now accounts for one in every seven internet page views in the UK.
Visits to Facebook have increased by 86.1% over the last year, according to Experian Hitwise. While more individual people visit Google, the number of page views received by Facebook makes it the most viewed website in the UK.
"During September Facebook was the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK," explained Robin Goad, Director of Research for Experian Hitwise in the UK. "But because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views. During September, Facebook received more page views than Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube combined."
UK internet visits to Facebook have more than doubled over the last 14 months, according to Experian Hitwise, and during September it accounted for 49.2% of all UK internet visits to a social networking website.
"Although it has fallen somewhat off the media radar in favour of Twitter recently, Facebook remains far and away the most popular social networking website in the UK," Goad added.
It also shows little sign of waning in popularity. Experian Hitwise looks at the average time a person spends on the site. Rivals such as Friends Reunited and MySpace have seen 'average session times' drop off, which then led to a reduction in visitor numbers. But Facebook has yet to experience this problem: Hitwise monitoring data showed that its average visit time increased from 19 minutes 59 seconds in September 2008 to 26 minutes 14 seconds during September 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/16/social-netwrkign-facebook-internet