Facebook tops 10 most popular online brands poll in the UK

LONDON - A survey on the most popular online brands in the UK has revealed that Facebook tops that chart, accounting for 13 per cent of all UK internet time last month.

As per Nielsen Online, which tracked the top 10 most popular online brands, this equated to the UK users spending one in every eight minutes on the site.

The amount of UK time spent on Facebook increased by 3.8 billion minutes in April 2009 if compared with April 2008, when UK users spent 2.4 billion minutes on Facebook.

Second on the list came Windows Live, the new name for Hotmail, which includes Microsoft’s email and instant messaging tools, with users spending 4.5 billion minutes on the site, accounting for a 9.2 percent share of the total time spent on the internet by UK users in April.

Google came in third, with users spending 2.6 billion minutes on the search site, occupying 5.3 percent share of total Internet time.

The top 10 web brands accounted for 45 percent of the total UK Internet time. Consequently the other 7,625 brands tracked by Nielsen Online, have to fight for the remaining 55 per cent of time Britons spend online.

“The Internet is a complex and varied ecosystem and I think most people would be surprised by just how much time is accounted for by a relatively few brands who, in turn, are increasing their share of the pie,” the Telegraph quoted a Nielsen Online spokesperson as saying.

In April 2009, the average Briton spent 22 hours 20 minutes online or using internet-related applications.

This represents a 34 percent increase on a year ago when the figure was 16 hours 36 minutes.

The top 10 most used web brands in the UK during April 2009, according to total minutes spent on the site:

1. Facebook - 6.2 billion minutes

2. Windows Live - 4.5 billion minutes

3. Google - 2.6 billion minutes

4. eBay - 2.0 billion minutes

5. Yahoo! - 1.7 billion minutes

6. AOL - 1.5 billion minutes

7. BBC - 1.1 billion minutes

8. YouTube - 898 million minutes

9. Microsoft - 733 million minutes

10. Apple - 719 million minutes (ANI)