Facebook.com accounted for 45.29% of UK Internet visits to social networking sites during June 2007, Hitwise announced today. This represents a 188% increase compared with a year ago. Bebo.com, which was the market leader last year, was the second ranked social networking site in the UK during June, with a market share of 25.04%. MySpace.com ranked third with a market share of 14.75%. Combined, the 'big 3' social networks accounted for over 85% of UK Internet visits to the category in June.

Top 10 Social Networks in the UK, June 2008



In America MySpace remains the market leader, capturing 71.92% of US Internet visits to social networking sites during June. Facebook was in second place with a market share of 16.91%, representing a 40% growth over the previous year.



Twitter UK traffic: up 485% this year, 70% higher than USA

One smaller niche social network that is currently growing rapidly in the UK and elsewhere is the 'micro-blogging' service Twitter. Weekly UK Internet visits to www.twitter.com increased by 631% during the 12 months ending 12 July 2008, with 485% of that growth coming this year. Twitter is currently more popular with British users than Americans - for the week ending 12 July 2008, the site's share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher than its share of visits in America.

UK Internet Visits to Twitter



"Although it is still most popular with classic early adopter segments of the population, the breadth of Twitter's appeal may surprise some people," commented Robin Goad, Research Director at Hitwise. "During the four weeks ending 12 July 2008, visitors were split 50/50 male/female, while only 15% were from London. 25-34 year olds are still the most over represented age group visiting the site, but 37% of visitors to the site are now aged 45 and over."

Another sign of maturity is that mainstream media organisations are starting to pick up traffic from Twitter. For example, BBC News now receives more Internet traffic from Twitter than it sends there. The BBC Sport feed is also very popular, and during the four weeks ending 12 July 2008, 'bbc sport' was the second most popular search term sending traffic to Twitter.