Facebook is UK’s second favourite site
FACEBOOK overtook Microsoft websites in Britain for the first time last month, becoming the UK’s second-most popular after Google as people aged over 50 flocked to social networks, online measurement body UKOM/Nielsen said.
Facebook attracted a record 26.8m visitors in Britain in May, up seven per cent year on year, beating the 26.2m who visited Microsoft’s MSN, WindowsLive and Bing sites combined, the organisation said yesterday. Google had 33.9m.
Twitter’s UK audience jumped by a third to 6.1m in May, after thousands of users retweeted allegations of celebrity scandals in defiance of gagging orders, including an extra-marital affair by Manchester United soccer star Ryan Giggs.
UKOM/Nielsen said the number of women pensioners visiting the site doubled after “Giggsgate”.
“The growth in audiences to these social networks is now primarily being driven by the 50-plus age group. Just a few years ago, this group may have found itself out of place on these sites,” UKOM general manager James Smythe said. He said over-50 year olds accounted for more new adults visiting Facebook in the last two years than under-50s, resulting in an age profile far more closely reflecting that of the UK online population as a whole than previously.
•Also yesterday, investment fund GSV Capital took a small stake in Facebook that valued the site at about $70bn. GSV Capital said that it had bought 225,000 shares in Facebook at an average price of $29.28 each. Facebook has roughly 2.4bn outstanding shares.