Report: Facebook Hot in U.K.; Overall Social 'Net Growth Slowing

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on October 10, 2008 - 9:03am.

London - While Facebook was the second most-visited website in the U.K. in September, behind Google, growth appears to be slowing for the company and other social networks in the U.K., according to a report from measurement and analysis firm Hitwise.

Facebook drew 3.16% of all U.K. Internet searches during the month, compared with 8.22% for Google, and 1.24% for U.K.-based social network Bebo.

However, traffic to Facebook increased by just 4% between August and September, down from 50% over the same period last year; likewise, annual growth was a respectable 88% between September 2007 and 2008, but was significantly less than the 2905% growth seen over the previous year.

Hitwise also noted that average session lengths on Facebook in the U.K. have flattened out at 20 minutes, adding that both MySpace and Bebo saw a decline in average session time "in tandem with their declining U.K. market share."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/4916n (Hitwise)

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/10/report-facebook.html

Published in DMW Daily, October 10, 2008

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Comments

Is search the future of Facebook?

Submitted by Ian Hendry (not verified) on October 12, 2008 - 8:33pm.

The most interesting statistic in here is that Facebook achieved 40% of the volume of SEARCHES that Google attained. This is an amazing figure, as no one ever mentions search on Facebook. I could see Facebook as the future of search. There is already a big database of user submitted material, and all has preference information attached to it. Imagine if you could search on anything and when you get results, it shows you how that relates to people you know: whether they like it, endorse the businesses, list the item as a favourite etc. Very powerful. Offline we ask our friends for recommendations of things to do, phones to buy, attractions to visit before we'd look them up in the Yellow Pages. But Google is barely more than an online directory of web pages. Facebook, however, has your "social graph" attached to it, so can do the same but with specific recommendations. Expect that search figure to grow as Facebook experiments beyond just incorporation Live Search into the site. Ian Hendry CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ http://www.wecando.biz