Social Networking More Mobile, Says Nielsen

By Editor Wireless and Mobile News on March 10, 2009 11:59 AM

According to a new Nielsen report "Global Faces and Networked Places," two-thirds of the world's Internet population visit social networking or blogging sites, accounting for almost 10% of all internet time. Social networking is also becoming more mobile.

Time spent on social network sites is also expanding: Worldwide 2008 activity in 'Member Communities' accounted for one in every 15 online minutes - now it accounts for one in every 11.

The popularity of social networks increased demand to access them on mobiles. UK mobile web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset with 23% of them (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US (10.6 million people). The numbers of people doing so are a big increase on last year - 249% in the UK and 156% in the US. The report says that at the end of 2008 almost 3 million U.S. users were texting Facebook on a regular basis.

While social networks started out among the younger audience which is now aging. This shift has primarily been driven by Facebook whose greatest growth has come from people aged 35-49 years of age (+24.1 million). From December 2007 through December 2008, Facebook added almost twice as many 50-64 year old visitors (+13.6 million) than it has added under 18 year old visitors (+7.3 million).

For additional trend data and insights, download the full report of Nielsen’s Global Faces and Networked Places.