US goes nuts on social networking

More people are spending more time using social network sites, according to a report by Nielsen.

In the US, the number of minutes spent using social networking sites such as Facebook grew by 83 percent year on year.

And Facebook has been the winner in the social networking game, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009.

Nielsen VP Jon Gibs said: “We have seen some major growth in Facebook during the past year, and a subsequent decline in MySpace. Twitter has come on the scene in an explosive way, perhaps changing the outlook for the entire space.”

He said that even if sites grow fast, they can fall fast too. “Neither Facebook nor Twitter are immune. Consumers have shown that they are willing to pick up their networks and move them to another platform, seemingly at a moment’s notice,” he said.

But even though Facebook has made waves, MySpace still rules the roost on online video in the USA – it’s number one, followed by Facebook, Stickam, FunniestStuff.net and Funny or Die.