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.

Arlington, Va. - PBS.org, the website of PBS, saw a 25% jump in site visits during the 2007-08 television season, compared with the prior year, according to new statistics released by Internet measurement service Hitwise. The site, in fact, finished third among the six commercial broadcast network web sites, drawing 18.9% of U.S. visits to trail only ABC and NBC. It led all six in visits for the weeks ending May 31, June 7, 14 and 21.

I noticed Michael Arrington's post on Facebook shutting down a Slide.com application and checked Hitwise data to compare Facebook and MySpace clickstream data in particular to Photography websites. The differences are interesting and highlight different interests of users as well as a different profile of user. Facebook sends far less traffic to Photography websites than does MySpace. Last week, 0.67% of downstream visits from Facebook went to Photography websites compared to 4.26% from MySpace.

The CBI has issued a report claiming that clothing retailers have just experienced their worst month for quarter of a century. I can only assume that this fall in sales must be down to an underperforming high street, because the online fashion industry is booming. Our Apparel and Accessories category is currently the fourth largest retail sub sector (behind Auctions, Department Stores, and Rewards and Directories), accounting for almost 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits to an online retailer.

London - More than 27 million U.K. Web users streamed a total of 3.5 billion videos online during March 2008, according to data from Web ratings provider comScore. Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube accounted for 48% of U.K. online video traffic, followed by the BBC (1.2%), Fox Interactive Media/MySpace (0.9%), Microsoft sites (0.7%), Yahoo sites (0.6%) and Dailymotion (0.4%). U.K. viewers notably watched an average of 127.7 videos each during March -- higher than rates measured by comScore in the U.S., Canada, France or Germany.

McLean, Va. - Clearspring Technologies said that its widget syndication and tracking service has been independently audited and accredited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations Interactive (ABCi). It marks the first time a widget company has had its numbers validated by an outside agency. The ABCi concluded that, as of June 16, Clearspring fairly stated the metrics for its widget platform and employed the necessary internal controls and processes to ensure proper delivery and tracking of widgets.

Mountain View, Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) is planning to introduce a new Internet audience measurement service, to compete with existing ratings provided by comScore and Nielsen, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. While those companies track which websites users visit by conducting surveys or using tracking software on select user groups -- and charge for their services -- Google's service will be free, and based mainly on data from Web servers, potentially providing broader results.

Los Angeles - Facebook drew more worldwide monthly unique visitors than rival MySpace (NYSE: NWS) in May (123.9 million vs. 114.6 million), according to comScore, while MySpace continued to lead in the lucrative U.S. market with 73.7 million monthly unique users, compared with Facebook's 35.6 million. In terms of growth, Facebook's global traffic was up 6% in May while U.S. growth was flat. MySpace saw global traffic fall 1% in May, while U.S. traffic was up 2% from the prior month.

A lot of the iPhone launch coverage last week included references to the alternatives to Apple’s latest mobile phone. It looks like the competitor that benefited most from these comparisons in Britain was Blackberry – ironic, considering that many are touting the new 3G iPhone as a ‘blackberry-killer’. As you can see from the table chart below, UK Internet searches for ‘blackberry’ reached their highest ever level last week.

It is coming up on 2 years post my declaration that only a moron would buy Youtube and that Google was crazy for actually going through with it. In that period of time, while Youtube traffic has skyrocketed, they have been steadfast in their admission that they haven't been able to monetize Youtube's traffic in a profitable manner. Youtube has become the poster child for the old saying "we are losing money on every sale, but we will make it up in volume".

I got a request today to update the chart I posted back in February comparing the online audience for Yahoo! Search and Google.com given yesterday's announcement about a advertising deal between the two. Last time I did the analysis I found an age gap - with Yahoo! Search users skewing younger than Google.com users - and also found that Google users tend to be bigger spenders online. The age gap has closed slightly so that Yahoo! Search users still do tend to skew younger than Google but by a smaller margin than in February.

That’s what I’m talking about! Like nine million other Britons, the Hitwise UK office has been slightly obsessed with The Apprentice over the last few months. We were pleased to see peoples’ choice Lee McQueen crowned winner last night, although we do have sympathy for the runner up and favourite, Claire Young (I wonder if she’ll take up that job offer from Karen Brady?). In addition to the reverse pterodactyl and Clurr, our other favourites included thespian Raef (also the viewer’s favourite - ‘raef’ and ‘raef bjayou’ were the top contestant search terms sending traffic to the programme’s homepage over the last 4 weeks); Lady Lucinda Ribenaberet; Kevin, the only gay in the Italian restaurant; and of course Surallen himself. Naturally, we weren’t so keen of on the evil trinity of Alex, Michael and Jenny.

Apple is expected to launch a new version of its iPhone at the Apple World Wide Developers' Conference in San Francisco today Monday. As with all such events, the speculation amongst Apple fans and foes has almost reached fever pitch. Last week UK Internet visits to the iPhone website reached a new high. In fact, there were over twice the number of visits last week than during any of previous peaks, including the initial announcement, UK launch and recent price cut.

Mixx.com, the social news website supported by many big mainstream media brands, is in the news for releasing results that show its traffic has more than doubled in May. I was following the thread on this story this morning on Techmeme and thought I'd share some Hitwise data that may answer some of the questions being raised. Marshall Kilpatrick at Red Write Web suggests that while the growth is impressive he is surprised the site receives less than 5% of the traffic that goes to Digg. Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch points out that the growth in May came as a result of links from the bottom of all CNN.com stories.

New York - NBC Universal and ratings and research firm Nielsen have announced a partnership to create a new sales and marketing metric, that will combine TV and Web video ratings with databases of consumer activity for broader overall product categories, including packaged goods, pharmaceuticals, automotive and movies. The companies said their effort will provide advertisers with "unprecedented connection between purchasing behavior and viewing habits across multiple platforms."

Reston, Va. - ComScore (NASD: SCOR), a provider of Internet audience measurement services, said that it has paid $44.3 million in cash to acquire Seattle-based M:Metrics, a provider of mobile Web measurement services.

On Monday night, the CW will air the highly anticipated (or is that just me) season finale for the first season of Gossip Girl, a much talked about show (called the Greatest Teen Drama of All-Time by New York magazine) based upon a series of novels by Cecily von Ziegesar. Since this show is often discussed around the office and with friends, I was curious to see the show’s website traffic. As one would expect, the premiere on Sept 19th caused the traffic to ramp up pretty quickly, resulting in the 2nd highest week for the website in terms of the market share of visits. The actual peak (to date) was the week ending October 20, 2007 as the show grew in popularity.