Social Media Flies Past Email and Search for Web Usage

Social Media Flies Past Email And Search For Web Usage

By Bill Ives
Expert Author
Article Date: 2011-10-04

I can remember when Email and Search were the top two in Web usage (aside from porn). Of course, I can remember when there was no Web. Times have changed. Ross Dawson recently shared (on his blog) a new Nielsen report with detailed statistics on online activity that I learned about from his Twitter feed. It puts social media and blogs on top for Web usage by a significant amount (22,5%) over the new number two, games at 9.8%. Email now comes in third at 7/6% and search is a distance sixth at 4.0%.

I also remember when blogs and social media were the new kids on the block. Now the top five individual social media and blog sources for Web use in terms of time on site are as follows:

Facebook 53,457,258 monthly minutes

Blogger 723,793 monthly minutes

Tumblr 623,525 monthly minutes

Twitter 565,156 monthly minutes

LinkedIn 325,679 monthly minutes

However, as Ross points out Twitter is dramatically under reported here because most people, like me, primarily interact with Twitter outside the Twitter site. Facebook also confounds the social media results. Minutes on site also under-reports search, as it is not a destination site. This is likely why Blogger is number two above as people take time to read posts.

Ross also showed the top five Web brands and here we can see that Google is much higher in terms on monthly minutes on site in billions than numbers two - four above: Facebook (53.5), Yahoo (17.2), Google 12.5), AOL (11.4), MSN/Bing (9.5).

There is much more on Ross's blog and even more in the detailed Nielsen report. Ross also lists the top countries in social media and blog usage: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, U.K., and U.S. I am not sure that being tenth is a good thing or a bad thing. What do you think?

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About the Author:
Dr. Bill Ives is an independent consultant and writer who has worked with Fortune 100 companies in business uses of emerging technologies for over 20 years. For several years he led the Knowledge Management Practice for a large consulting firm.. Now he primarily helps companies with their business blogs. He is also the VP of Social Media and blogger for TVissimo, a new TV schedule search engine. Prior to consulting, Dr. Ives was a Research Associate at Harvard University exploring the effects of media on cognition. He obtained his Ph. D. in Educational Psychology from the University of Toronto. Bill can be reached at his blog: Portals and KM. He also writes for the FastForward blog and the AppGap blog.