It is no secret that social networks are becoming more and more popular in the UK. A recent study published by Nielsen Online offers some hard proof indicating that Britons are relocating their attention from communication and traditional content sites to online communities.According to the report, the time UK internet users spend online has only increased 4% compared to one year ago. With the internet penetration rate close to 70% of the population, the online market is very close to maturity. Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst at Nielsen Online, uses the figures to suggest that consumer saturation could mean that as one sector grows another will be obliged to shrink.
The study shows a clear trend of user generated websites (with Facebook at the head of the pack) tempting users to spend double the amount of time on them as they did last year, and stealing a considerable user engagement share from instant messaging tools. MSN / Windows Live Messenger still remain the leading UK site by total minutes, but it has seen a drop of almost 1 billion minutes over the last year. Facebook is now very close on the heels of MSN after seeing an increase of 2 billion minutes in the last 12 months. Comscore data shows that the leading UK social networks, Facebook and Bebo, keep breaking usage records month after month.
Many analysts are already wondering about the impact of the new Facebook IM feature on the market share of the previous players. Looking at the success of other services like Twitter, is it possible that Instant Messaging applications as we've known them are on the decline? It is obvious that instant communication will never be left behind, but user's needs are constantly changing and applications should seek to evolve in a parallel way to better satisfy the market.
Mobile internet is still in its infancy but it is inevitable it will allow marketers a great new opportunity of growth. On Monday 9 June we saw Steve Jobs announcing the global release of the iPhone 3G with a much lower price than the previous versions. Major mobile phone manufacturers are also launching similar devices which will make mobile internet more useful and appealing to customers.
With consumer generated media, search and entertainment on the incline and communication and content sites on the decline, it seems pretty clear which way the wind is blowing - for now anyway.
