Social Networking More Popular Than Email

New stats from Nielsen Online show that by the end of 2008, social networking had overtaken email in terms of worldwide reach. According to the study, 66.8% of Internet users across the globe accessed “member communities” last year, compared to 65.1% for email. The most popular online activities remain search and Web portals (with around 85% reach) and the websites of software manufacturers.

The far-reaching study also explored a number of other trends within the social networking space. In 2008, users spent 63% more time on member communities than they did in the previous year. However, within member communities, Facebook saw growth of 566% in time spent on it by users worldwide. As has been reported elsewhere, Facebook’s fastest growth demographic is older users – the social network tacked on 12.4 million people between ages 35-49 in 2008 according to Nielsen.

Some other key findings from the report:

- Globally, Facebook reaches 29.9% of global Internet users, versus 22.4% for MySpace.

- MySpace remains the most profitable social network, generating an estimated $1 billion in revenue versus $300 million for Facebook in 2008.

- Facebook is the top social network in all countries except Germany, Brazil, and Japan (Nielsen still has MySpace as tops in US in the report, but as of January ’09, that had changed).

- On Twitter, CNN, The New York Times, and BBC have the greatest reach among mainstream media companies as of late February.

Overall, most of these trends aren’t surprising if you’ve been following the space, but nonetheless, tie some numbers to them. Most impressive is the rise of Facebook, who is outpacing the growth of the social networking space on the whole by nearly tenfold.

Facebook, Nokia Discuss Alliance

So, the long talked about Nokia-Facebook relationship is finally taking form?

Facebook Inc. is stepping up its efforts to integrate its social network into an array of mobile phones, including those made by Nokia Corp., the world’s largest handset maker.

Facebook and Nokia are discussing a partnership that would embed parts of the social network into some Nokia phones, people familiar with the matter said. Financial terms of the potential deal couldn’t be learned, nor was it clear how many of Nokia’s devices would be included.

Under one alternative, contact information stored in Facebook would be integrated with the phone’s address book: When users looked up a contact, they could see …

[Source: Wall Street Journal]

And Om Malik comments on this as –

The Journal reports that Nokia is torn between starting its own social network or working with Facebook. It is a no brainer — starting its own social network would be yet another not-so-smart move by Nokia which still has to show that it has web chops. Partnering with Facebook, MySpace and others is the right way to go.

Orkut in Tamil

I found this interesting article. I do not know how to read Tamil. Still, I could figure out most of it. If you understand Tamil, you might find it much more amusing I am posting the entire post here. Couldn’t help it

I never noticed orkut had started offering services in tamil till today and I changed the interface to tamil and believe it or not I like it. Lot of stuff that makes sense but there are a few things that are very funny check them out.

I know I’m poor single fellow without a girl friend but does orkut have to say it so explicitly???

Never knew chance was a tamil word ??? When did they add it??

Check this out… Can somebody pliss explain wtf is “tiranda kalyanam”

Introducing “ketta jokes” and “uzhnokka jokes”… hope you get the meaning

I bet the coder was sure a Chennaihite..

And I thought getting a “munaivar pattam” was getting a Phd.. not so?? somebody explain pliss

What do you mean by a “muslim” psyche ???