The rise and rise (and rise) of social networking

May.28.2009 Hints & Tips, Hosting, add-ons

Please take a look at our community software….http://www.instacommunity.co.uk which can be purchased at our INSTA turnkey store HERE

Following on from our recent post about Hitwise’s research in to social networking in the UK yet more research is pointing to social networks as being THE growth area online.

Nielson Online has released findings in to the use of social networking around the globe and from a virtual standing start a few years ago their category has exploded in to 4th place.

Grouped with blogs to create a category named “Member communities” they have now over taken email and are only behind search engines, portals and PC software (I’d argue ‘adult sites’ would be in there somewhere if they were not consciously excluded in this type of research).

Other stats that jump out are:

- 67% of their research panel use member community sites

- 1 in every 11 minutes online are spent on these sites

- The 35 – 49 age category saw the biggest increase in uptake

- UK mobile web users are the most likely to access these sites through a hand set than any other country

- 69% of the UK online audience visit a member community site

Social networking doesn’t really offer anything new in terms of what you can do (posting on a board, send a message, chat online, share images…) but what is different bringing  all of these in to one handy place where our ‘friends’ can access them.

I wonder how it will be before we can search the internet from Facebook?

This looks like a great time to jump on to the social networking band wagon and our addition of social networking software Elgg to our CGI one-click  Internet  library of one click install programs lets you to take full advantage.

You can read Nielson’s press release summary here: http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090309.pdf (PDF)

PS, dont forget that we offer a fully installed INSTA community over at http://www.instasite.biz

Social Me!