Behind GOOGLE, Facebook goes one up over Microsoft sites in UK, London
Facebook attracted 26.8 million visitors in the UK in May,
up 7 per cent year on year, beating the 26.2 million who visited Microsoft’s MSN/ Windows
Live/ Bing sites combined, the organisation said 27th june 2011. Google had 33.9
million.
Facebook Inc's site overtook Microsoft Corp's Web sites in the UK for the first
time last month, becoming the UK's second most popular after Google Inc's search
engine as people over the aged of 50 flocked to social networks, online measurement
body UKOM/ Nielsen said.
Twitter’s UK audience jumped by a third to 6.1 million, after thousands of users
re-tweeted allegations of celebrity scandals in defiance of gagging orders, including
an extra-marital affair by Manchester United soccer star Ryan Giggs.
UKOM/ Nielsen said the number of women pensioners visiting the site doubled after
"Giggsgate". The growth in audiences to these social networks is now primarily being
driven by the 50 plus age group.
Just a few years ago, this group may have found itself out of place on these sites,
UKOM general manager, Mr. James Smythe said.
He said user’s over-50year-olds accounted for more new adults visiting Facebook
in the last two years than under-50s, resulting in an age profile far more closely
reflecting that of the UK online population as a whole than previously. Older age
groups were also more likely to visit Twitter than in the past, but under-18s were
less likely to visit the site than two years ago, which was not the case for Facebook.
Business Network LinkedIn, whose market value has risen 58 percent to US $6.65 billion
since its New York stock market debut last month, registered 3.6 million UK visitors
in May, up 57 per cent from a year earlier.
Facebook attracted 140 million visitors in the US, up 12 percent. In Spain its numbers
were up 7 per cent, in France 18 per cent, in Italy 26 per cent and in Germany 72
per cent. Twitter's visitor numbers rose 22 per cent in the US, 48 percent in France,
58 percent in Italy and more than doubled in Spain. However, in Germany they fell
by 11 per cent.
Courtesy: dc-epaper
