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Just 10 Sites, Apps Averaged at least 500MM UK Online Minutes per Month

A select group of websites and applications - 10 in all - have averaged at least 500 million UK minutes per month over the last year, and together they account for 30% of all UK online-related time*, according to (pdf) Nielsen Online.

The top 10 include two social networks (Facebook and Bebo) two email sites (Hotmail and Yahoo Mail) and two media players (Windows Media Player and iTunes):

Other findings:

• Over the last year, Britons spent a total of almost 34 billion minutes on websites and Internet-related applications on average each month
• MSN Messenger, eBay and Facebook are the only three websites/applications to average over one billion total minutes each month - a further seven averaged over 500 million minutes.

“It’s incredible to think that despite the diversity of the internet, the ten sites and applications that make up the ‘500 million’ club account for 30% of all online-related time,” Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, said.

“This means that the thousands of other sites are competing for a much smaller share of the pie than they might think. If you also take into account that Britons aren’t spending significantly more time online, yet there are more sites springing up all the time, it shows how increasingly competitive and cut-throat the online sector is becoming.”

Fastest-growing websites/applications by UK Total Minutes

• Facebook is the only website/application to have increased its total minutes by over 200,000 - it grew by almost 1.8 billion minutes.
• Fellow social-media site YouTube was second with an increase of 196 million minutes.
• The inclusion of Wikipedia, Club Penguin and Veoh mean that social media accounts for half of the fastest growing websites by total UK minutes.

“Whilst the social media wave continues to have the biggest impact on internet behavior levels, it’s important not to forget that some of online’s more traditional sectors continue to perform well. The representation of sectors such as games, search and retail - through sites such as Second Life, Google and Asda respectively - show the health and vitality of the entire online arena,” Burmaster concluded.

*Online related time refers to the fact that some media player applications (e.g. Windows Media Player, iTunes etc) can be used offline. The offline time usage of these applications is, therefore, included in the total time.