According to a new Nielsen report "Global Faces and Networked Places," two-thirds of the world's Internet population visit social
networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all internet
time. Social networking is also becoming more mobile.
Time spent on social network sites is also expanding: Worldwide 2008 activity in 'Member Communities' accounted for one in
every 15 online minutes - now it accounts for one in every 11.
The popularity of social networks increased demand to access them on mobiles. UK mobile web users have the
greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset
with 23% of them (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US
(10.6 million people). The numbers of people doing so are a big
increase on last year - 249% in the UK and 156% in the US. The report says that at the end of 2008 almost 3 million U.S. users were texting Facebook on a regular basis.
While social networks started out among the younger audience which is
now aging. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook
whose greatest growth has come from people aged 35-49 years of age
(+24.1 million). From December 2007 through December 2008, Facebook
added almost twice as many 50-64 year old visitors (+13.6 million) than
it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million).
For additional trend data and insights, download the full report of Nielsen’s Global Faces and Networked Places.