Communications and Technology Industry Research

Spending more time on Facebook these days? It appears you’re not the only one.

 

A new report from market research Nielsen Online (News - Alert) found that Facebook users spent 13.9 billion minutes on the site in April, up from 1.7 billion a year ago. The latest usage makes Facebook the top social networking site on the Internet. MySpace took second place in popularity with about 5 billion minutes logged in April, the report said.

 

The report shows continued interest in social networking in the U.S. The total minutes spent on social networking sites has increased 83 percent in the states from a year ago. For example, time spent on Facebook soared 699 percent since April 2008, Nielsen said. Interestingly, there was a 31 percent dip in time spent on MySpace (News - Alert).

 

Google’s Blogger was the third most popular social networking company, but its numbers are far below that of Facebook, or MySpace. Users spent 582,683 minutes on the site in April, a 30 percent growth over 2008, Nielsen said. Likewise, Twitter and LinkedIn reported nearly 300 million minutes and 202 million minutes, for the month, respectively.

 

While the amount of time spent tweeting is far lower than time spent on Facebook, Twitter usage appears to be growing. The micro-blogging site experienced an astounding 3,712 percent growth since April 2008, according to Reuters (News - Alert).

 

“We have seen some major growth in Facebook during the past year, and a subsequent decline in MySpace,” Jon Gibs, Nielsen vice president of online media and agency insights, said in a statement. “Twitter has come on the scene in an explosive way perhaps changing the outlook for the entire space.”

 

It’s clear Twitter doesn’t need help from Facebook to maintain users and interest. The company rejected a $500 million acquisition offer from social networking firm Facebook last year. And as TMC recently reported, Twitter executives are looking for ways to take advantage of its growing audience by creating tools and services for users to generate potential revenue streams without ads.

 

Nielsen’s report follows earlier research from comScore (News - Alert), which said that Facebook outpaced MySpace outside the U.S. As TMC reported, social networking in the Middle East and Africa regions saw a 66 percent growth rate, and Europe and Latin America reported a 35 and 33 percent rate, respectively.

 

Once the top dog, MySpace accounted for 73 percent of the time spend on social networks. Yet a year later in April, users spent only 23 percent of their time on the site, according to Nielsen. Facebook

 

“The one thing that is clear about social networking is that regardless of how fast a site is growing or how big it is, it can quickly fall out of favor with consumers,” Gibs added.

 

Yet in the video space, MySpace outpaced Facebook. Myspace was the leader for video with 120.8 million video streams reported in April, the report said. Visitors spent 384 million minutes viewing video on the site, averaging 38.8 minutes per viewer, Nielsen said. Meanwhile, Facebook visitors spent 114 million minutes viewing video in April, with averaging 11.2 minutes per video viewer.

 

One factor that might be contributing to the growth in video on MySpace is the ability for users to enjoy

video conferencing. Under the MySpace Developer Platform, members have access to video mail, public video posting and free video chat for free using SightSpeed (News - Alert) Light, TMC reported.