It seems that Australia’s have fallen in love with social networking sites, in particular Facebook. In February this year Hitwise released a report on “What are Australian’s doing Online” and after using the internet for search (10.8%), social networking and forums (8%) are our second most popular past time even more so than News & Media (6.75%).
So what social networking sites do we like? Well Facebook, MySpace and Bebo of course!
What is really interesting here is that Facebook alone has had a 11-fold increase in traffic in the 12 months to May 2008. Facebook is now ranked as the 4th most visited website in May 2008, up from 6th in April. Not only is traffic increasing so in our engagement with social networks, where on average we spent over 28 minutes on the sites, compared to only 11 minutes across all websites.
Based on the above results yesterday’s post where we found that in a US survey 40% of Generation Y’s expect to have social networking sites in the workplace is not surprising we are seeing these sort results in Australia. So why are these tools becoming so engaging?
“The increased user-engagement on Facebook is due to the proliferation of third-party applications; particularly ones that serve a useful function, such as travel planners or book-sharing programs. Additional features for connecting users, such as ‘People You May Know’ has also helped increase user traction on Facebook” said Sandra Hanchard, analyst at Hitwise.
I would suspect that Australian web users are becoming attracted to user generated content, others opinions, folksononmies and collaborative working. This is unfortunate for most organisations as they have neither the management or technical infrastructure to support these new working methods.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Want more content like this? Subscribe by RSS or by Email.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Chris // Aug 1, 2008 at 4:02 pm
A dedicated website for Australian social networking is also http://www.youzoomr.com
Check it out
2 Visualized-IT // Oct 23, 2008 at 9:42 pm
A social networking website for Australian businesses and professionals is also
http://www.linkedjobs.com.au
Ideal for job seekers and job offers, check it out
3 Vern // Nov 5, 2008 at 10:14 pm
It’s interesting that the largest australian based social network for aussies - http://www.smsfun.com.au didn’t even make the top 10.
Seems we’re all controlled by the big international networks.
4 Visualized-IT // Nov 6, 2008 at 7:53 pm
@Vern
I’m agree with your opinion. I’m also running 2 global fetish sites which is on the top 10 both of them. The question is: How come and even a free business social networking site in 20 days got only 15 members when an adult social network it’s getting about 20 new members in daily bases ?
The question is focused on Aussies as when I was trying to found a business social network I was must to pay a fee to join or simply was not exist. It is not the international networks, it is the culture of people I think.
5 Tina // Mar 5, 2009 at 4:08 pm
MyOzpage is a new Australian owned and operated Social Networking Website.
It is 100% FREE to join and use all the features. Connect with your friends and family or make new friends from anywhere is Australia.
6 Chris // Mar 18, 2009 at 11:52 am
About My Age is the online community for over 50s
http://www.aboutmyage.com
This website is free and a fun way to interact with like minded people.
Those other websites listed are mainly for younger people.
7 James Farmer // Jun 29, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I recently found this site photodiary.com
It is hugely popular in Sweden, and could take off here considering it is based soley on images.
http://www.thephotodiary.com/
Leave a Comment