Last week Twitter received more UK Internet visits than MySpace for the first time. As the chart below illustrates, for the week ending 29/08/09 Twitter.com picked up 1 in every 400 UK Internet visits and ranked as the 27th most visited website in the UK, one position above MySpace.

Last week we provided the BBC with some interesting data illustrating how UK Internet visits to Social Networks and Forums have overtaken Adult websites. As the chart below illustrates, social networks overtook last October and have remained ahead since.

The online music retailer eMusic has put out some interesting data that, it is claimed, supports the famous “Long Tail” theory of online retail. Chris Anderson (picture), the editor in chief of Wired magazine, coined the phrase in a 2004 article, claiming that Internet retailers would sell more niche products at the expense of mass-market items. However, this theory was challenge in a recent study by Will Page and Andrew Bud, which claimed more than 10 million of the 13 million music tracks available on the Internet failed to find a single buyer last year. In response, eMusic has reported that 75% of the tracks in its catalogue were bought at least once in 2008.

With all of the focus on the economic downturn and the troubles in the retail sector, it’s easy to forget the continued growth of social networking in the UK. Christmas is traditionally the busiest time of year for social networks, and this festive season the sector achieved three significant new milestones.

I thought I had written our final blog post before Christmas, but I thought this data was too interesting not to share! As the chart below illustrates, last week traffic to E Cards websites was up 11.8% on the equivalent week last year.

Nintendo’s Wii Console, which accounted for more than one in three games console searches in November, overtook Nintendo’s Wii Fit to become the UK’s most searched-for product in November. The company’s DS Lite was also the fastest growing console online, with six times more searches in November than October. The popular handheld is now the second most searched-for console in the UK, accounting for more than one in every four games consoles searches.

While mobile phones continue to be the most searched-for product in the UK, they have seen a 23% decrease in searches since October as consumers turn their attention to Christmas gifts such as toys, video games and games consoles.

Last week we reported that the Nintendo Wii Fit video game is currently the most searched for product in the UK. In that post we also identified the Apple iPhone as the third most searched for product, followed by the Nokia N96 in fourth position. As the table below illustrates, during October mobile phones were the most searched for category of consumer electronic products in the UK, receiving over twice the volume of searches as video games, and three times that of computers.

Wii Fit, Nintendo’s popular video game, is currently the most searched-for product by UK Internet shoppers in the run-up to Christmas. During October there were more UK Internet searches for Wii Fit than the Nintendo Wii, the most popular product last Christmas. After Wii Fit and the Wii console, the third most searched-for gadget is the Apple iPhone.

London - After months of campaigning, Americans are today finally voting for the 44th president of their country. The US research team have been doing a great job monitoring search behaviour across the pond, so I thought I’d have a look at what’s been happening in Britain. The chart below illustrates the volume of searches for the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates in the UK this year, with Gordon Brown added in to give some context.

London, UK - Of the 10,583,351 websites visited by UK Internet users in September, Facebook was the second most popular after Google UK. The number one social network in Britain received 3.16% of all UK Internet visits last month, equivalent to one in every 32. For the 4 weeks ending 27/09/08, one in every 50 UK Internet searches was for the single term ‘facebook’.

We’ve had a number of requests for Google Chrome stats, so here they are… Yesterday (September 2nd) the homepage of the Google’s new browser was the 130th most visited in the UK, accounting for 0.06% of all UK Internet visits. As you can see from the table below, www.google.com/chrome was fifth most visited site in our Computers and Internet – Software category, accounting for 1.52% of all traffic to the industry. However, its two main competitors – Microsoft and Mozilla – still received more traffic yesterday.

London, U. K. - Teletrax, a British TV and online video monitoring and analytics firm, is being completely acquired by Philips, which previously owned 24% of the company.

Here are this month’s lists of the top 20 band / artist searches sending traffic to social networking sites (e.g. MySpace, YouTube, Last.fm, etc.) and the most popular music blogs for the 4 weeks ending August 2nd. First up social networks, and the top 2 entries, Basshunter and Biffy Clyro, have both had successful summers in the charts and have been in our top 20 for a number of months. The release of High School Musical 3 has led to a surge on interest in the Disney film / stage show, while Mamma Mia has also helped Abba enter the list at number 19. More evidence of the benefit of cross media promotion is the appearance of Hamfatter, the band that recently secured funding on the BBC show Dragons’ Den, at number 20.

London, U. K. - The British entertainment group BSkyB's revenues grew 9 percent to £5bn ($10 bn) in the first two quarters, but operating profit fell 11 percent to £724m ($1,4 bn).

The 10 fastest moving search terms in the UK last week were: 1. now 70; 2. christian bale; 3. global gathering; 4. heath ledger; 5. batman; 6. dark knight; 7. womad; 8. shipwrecked; 9. runehq; 10. hamfatter. Four of these terms – ‘christian bale’, ‘heath ledger’, ‘batman’. ‘dark knight’ – related to the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, which was released in the UK last weekend following a record breaking opening in the US.

The two Heathers (Hopkins and Dougherty) have both written about the growth of Twitter in the US recently, so here is some UK data on the micro-blogging service. As you can see from the chart below, the site’s growth has really ramped up this year. UK Internet visits to www.twitter.com have increased by 631% over the last 12 months, with 485% of that growth coming this year. Twitter is more popular with Brits than Americans: last week the site’s share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher its share of visits in America.

A few months ago we posted a list of the top 10 band / artist searches sending traffic to MySpace, the primary destination of searches for new artists. We’ve decided to expand the list to cover our whole Social Networking and Forums category, which includes the likes of Facebook and Bebo as well as YouTube (the fourth most popular destination for new artist searches after the MySpace, the band’s homepage and Wikipedia). So, here is a list of the hottest bands in the UK during June, based on the top 50 band / artist searches sending traffic to our Social Networking and Forums category (with their May position in brackets).

O2 started taking orders for Apple’s new 3G iPhone yesterday, and as you would expect it experienced a spike in traffic to both its homepage and online shop. Unfortunately the surge in demand caused the carrier’s site to crash, although it is now back online. However, O2 is already out of iPhones, and its site is carrying a message requesting customers come back on July 10th to place their order. Carphone Warehouse, which also experienced an increase in traffic yesterday, has a similar message up on its site.