A research on top-10 searched terms by volume has rated ‘facebook’ as number one in the ‘net communities and chat’ category, indicating the brand recall that Facebook enjoys globally and how it has reached a massive audience since its general availability in December 2008.
The research, carried out by Hitwise, a global information services firm and a subsidiary of Experian, monitored how more than 25 million internet users interact with over 1 million websites across more than 160 industry categories. It collected internet usage information through a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels. Data were collected in accordance with local and international privacy legislations and were audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
The research pointed out that ‘Facebook’ enjoyed the maximum 7.04 per cent of search volume followed by Myspace at 6.63 per cent and Youtube at 3.89 per cent.
Further, ‘facebook login’ enjoyed 2.71 per cent of search volume, ‘facebook.com’ 1.56 per cent and ‘www.facebook.com’ 0.81 per cent of search volume.
The situation, however, is different in India. In terms of visit summary for August 2009, Orkut leads in India with 14.4 million unique visitors and has 2,713 million monthly page views, according to a study done by Vizisense — an online audience measurement and analytics platform. After Orkut, it is Youtube that has maximum Indians. With monthly visits of 68 million, Youtube has 10.5 million unique users from India.
At ninth position, Facebook has 7.91 million unique users from India, with an average page view of 10 per visit and an average monthly visit of 10 per person. Orkut has an average monthly visit of 14 per person.
More From This Section
BuzzPoint, a firm specialising in social media marketing, has helped put Facebook’s massive 250 million user number into perspective. For example, if Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous nation on the planet, just in between the US and Indonesia.
Looking at usage inside the countries that make up Facebook’s user base, the top contributors are the US, the UK and Turkey. Interestingly enough, countries such as Iceland and Norway have 40 per cent of their population on Facebook, with Canada being among the larger countries with roughly 34 per cent of its population actively using the social networking site.
Facebook currently has more than 250 million active users, and more than 120 million people log on to it at least once every day. That apart, worldwide, while over five billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day, more than 1 billion photos are uploaded to the site each month.
Over 15,000 websites, devices and applications have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008. Facebook currently has over 65 million active users accessing it through their mobile devices. People using Facebook on their mobile phones are almost 50 per cent more active on the site than those who don’t do it that way. Currently, more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries are working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products.
Youtube, which stood third in the survey with 3.89 per cent of search volume, has a user base comprising netizens in the age group of 18-55, evenly divided between men and women, spanning all geographies. Around 51 per cent of its users go to YouTube weekly or more often, and 52 per cent of 18-34-year-olds share videos often with friends and colleagues. In fact, every minute, 10 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
Simultaneously, Hitwise research has rated ‘Pizza Hut’ as the largest searched term in the ‘food and beverages brand’ category with 3.31 per cent search volume. McDonald came a close second with 1.66 per cent search volume.