Revealed: The ten members of Web’s ‘500 million club’

The research, from Nielsen Online, indicates that Facebook, YouTube and Second Life are the fastest growing sites in terms of total UK minutes.

Over the last year, Britons spent a total of almost 34 billion minutes on websites and Internet-related applications on average each month, Nielsen Online said.

MSN Messenger, eBay and Facebook are the only three websites/applications to average over one billion total minutes each month – a further seven averaged over 500 million minutes.

The top ten include two social networks (Facebook and Bebo) two email sites (Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail) and two media players (Windows Media Player and iTunes)

Leading websites/applications by average total monthly UK minutes: June 2007 – May 2008

Source: Nielsen Online, UK NetView, home & work data, including applications, June 2007 – May 2008.

E.g. From Jun 07-May 08, MSN Messenger averaged 2.6 billion UK minutes each month = 8% share of online-related* time 

Alex Burmaster, Internet Analyst, Nielsen Online, said: “It’s incredible to think that despite the diversity of the Internet, the ten sites and applications that make up the “500 million” club account for 30% of all online-related time.

“This means that the thousands of other sites are competing for a much smaller share of the pie than they might think. If you also take into account that Britons aren’t spending significantly more time online, yet there are more sites springing up all the time, it shows how increasingly competitive and cut-throat the online sector is becoming.”

Fastest-growing websites/applications by UK Total Minutes 

Facebook is the only website/application to have increased its total minutes by over 200,000 – in fact it grew by almost 1.8 billion minutes.

Fellow social media site, YouTube, was second with an increase of 196 million minutes.

The inclusion of Wikipedia, Club Penguin and Veoh mean that social media accounts for half of the fastest growing websites by total UK minutes. 

Websites/applications with greatest increase in total UK minutes: May 2007 – May 2008

Source: Nielsen Online, UK NetView, home & work data, including applications, May 2007 – May 2008

E.g. Britons totalled 2.2 billion minutes on Facebook in May 08 – 1.8 billion more than in May 07 (0.5 billion) = a 387% increase

“Whilst the social media wave continues to have the biggest impact on Internet behaviour levels, it’s important not to forget that some of online’s more traditional sectors continue to perform well. The representation of sectors such as games, search and retail - through sites such as Second Life, Google and Asda respectively – show the health and vitality of the entire online arena.”