Social networks trump porn in UK

The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has seen the sector overtake entertainment – a category that includes adult entertainment and pornography – in the online popularity tables.

TechWatch reports that a new report from Experian Hitwise shows that social networks attracted 2.4bn visits in the UK in January, winning a 12.46 per cent overall market share. Facebook accounted for 56 per cent of those visits.

Entertainment, by contrast, fell to 12.18 per cent. The result is even more impressive considering that services such as iPlayer also fall under the entertainment banner.

Social networks were also the fastest growing sector, with recent numbers showing that 30m Brits are now registered on the service. That’s almost half of the total population.

"While social networks of course compete amongst themselves for users, many of those users have a presence on multiple networks," research director Robin Goad stated. "One in every eight people leaving a social network visits another one immediately after.

"Facebook, for example, is a key source of traffic for many smaller social networks, while almost a fifth of people leaving Twitter go on to visit another social network".