CHART CLOSE-UP FROM THE STORY:
UK's Hottest Social-Media Sites Now Led by YouTube »
scroll down to read the full story
UK's Hottest Social-Media Sites Now Led by YouTube
YouTube has replaced Wikipedia as the most-popular social-media website in the UK, increasing traffic 56% from Jan. ‘07 to reach 10.426 million unique UK visitors in Jan. ‘08, Nielsen reports.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Britons online - or 20.8 million people - visited at least one of the 10 most-popular social-media sites in Jan. ‘08; that’s 21% more than the 17.1 million who visited at least one of Jan. 07’s top 10.
Top 10 UK Social Media Websites
Social networks made a strong showing in January:
- Traffic to Facebook increased 712% year over year, moving up 15 places to take the No. 3 spot behind Wikipedia.
- Slide, Facebook’s add-on tool, entered the top 10 for the first time.
- MySpace, despite a 9% YOY decrease in traffic, was still more popular (5.026 million visitors) than UK-based social-networking site Bebo (4.090 million), traffic to which increased 53%.
Top 10 Fastest-Growing UK Social Media Sites
- Half of the 10 fastest-growing online properties from Jan. ‘07 to Jan. ‘08 were video sites:
- No. 3 vidShadow’s traffic increased 639% since the first month of measurable data (Nov. ‘07).
- Veoh (up 595%) and Youku (up 524% in 9 months) were No. 4 and No. 5, respectively.
- Among social networks…
- PerfSpot was the fastest-growing: Traffic was up 713% in nine months.
- Facebook’s traffic grew 712% year over year.
Video is “the biggest star of the 2008 social media scene,” said Alex Burmaster, an internet analyst at Nielsen Online. “Whether it’s people snacking on video clips or feasting on full-length TV programs and movies, the video sites look set to be the name on everybody’s lips as they improve their technology, the ease of use and awareness amongst our TV-loving nation. We’ll have to see if sites like vidShadow or Veoh join YouTube in being as famous as Facebook.”
