Facebook: 20.5 Billion Minutes Served Online

Nielsen.com reports that social networking and blogging have overtaken email to become the world's fourth most popular online sector after searching portals and PC software applications.

Online networking sites are used to post gossip and other details about peoples' lives, but they have also become a crucial means of communication during disasters as they unfold.

Time accounted for by 'Member Communities', or Facebook-like sites, has more than doubled in most of the countries monitored. 51% of Germans now access the sector, compared to 39% a year ago, giving Germany the strongest growth rate. The UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland had an increase of 10% from a year ago. (Source (PDF): blog.nielsen.com)

Facebook Users Spend More Time Online

Between December 2007 and December 2008, the total amount of time spent online increased by 18% globally. During that same time frame, the amount of time spent on 'Member Community' sites rose by 63% to 45 billion minutes.

The total amount of time spent on Facebook rose by 566% -- from 3.1 billion minutes to 20.5 billion minutes -- due to its being the ninth most popular brand online. Facebook also had the highest average time spent online per person amongst the 75 most popular brands online worldwide, averaging 3 hours, 10 minutes per person.

Nielsen attributes the rise of social networks in 2008 to Facebook alone, which has replaced MySpace as the world's most popular social network according to the Nielsen report . (Source (PDF): blog.nielsen.com)

People aged 35-49 years old represented the greatest growth in its number of audience numbers, with 24.1 million followed by 13.6 million visitors aged 50-64 and 7.3 million under 18 year old.

Networking, Blogging Sites Account For 10% Of All Internet Time

Globally, Facebook is the most popular networking site, but preferences differ by nationality.

Reuters reports that Facebook is the top site in Australia, Spain, Switzerland, France, the United Kingdom and Italy but Americans still favor MySpace. The Japanese favor Mixi, a local site, and Brazilians prefer Orkut, Google's networking site. (Source: reuters.com)

Nielsen says social network and blogging sites now account for almost 10% of all Internet time yet remain a largely un-monetized form of media. A lot more information can be found in the Global Faces and Networked Places report from Nielsen. (Source (PDF): blogs.nielsen.com)

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