People are spending more of their online time on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as well as blogs, according to a recent report from Nielsen research study.

According to the study, US citizens are spending almost 25% of their online time on social-networks and blog sites. This is about 6 hours per month per person and is a huge increase from just a year ago.

The study also shows that Americans spend around 36% of their internet time communicating and networking with other people through social networking, blogging, e-mail and messaging.

The growing popularity of social networks has led to an increase in the sharing of online content between people.

Although social networks started out as a communication tool for younger people, it is now attracting an older people. Now twice as many Americans over the age of 50 use social networks than people under 18.

Many older people use social networks as a way to find and stay in touch with friends and family.

As the use of social networks grow, its newer converts seem to be an older group of people who are more varied in race and economic class, according to Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

[ Source: USA Today ]

According to a recent report from Nielsen Ratings on social networks, the total amount of time people spent on social networks worldwide grew 100% in the last year.

Facebook and Twitter both saw large increases in new users.

Facebook traffic was up 69% in March as compared to last year. Twitter had a 45% increase in traffic during the same period.

Social networks that declined in traffic were Classmates Online, LinkedIn and MySpace – which dropped almost 25% in unique users during the last year.

The average social network user now spends over six hours per month on these sites.

Sign of the times – in what is being called a historical mobile fundraising campaign, US cell phone users have given over $10 million to Haitian earthquake relief efforts through text messages.

The Mobile Giving Foundation is calling the outpouring of support a “mobile-giving record” for money raised for a single natural disaster. The foundation is getting around 10,000 texts/second from contributors.

All text message contributions are charged to the donor’s cell phone bill and many wireless carriers have waived standard text message fees for the fundraising effort.

The American Red Cross estimates that $8 million of the $37 million it has raised for Haitian relief efforts has been given by mobile phone users.

The texting donations are also being powered by social networks like Facebook and Twitter, where people are encouraging others to donate using their cell phones and mobile devices.

[ Source: Reuters.com ]

The 2009 Application Usage and Risk Report from Palo Alto Networks that analyzed web use and traffic patterns on over 200 networks globally showed that business use of social networks, social media and collaborative software exploded over the last six months.

Findings from the report include:

- Twitter use grew by 250 percent from the 2009 spring report.

- Facebook use grew by 192 percent and Facebook Chat was found to be the 4th most commonly used instant message application, beating both Yahoo! IM and AIM.

- SharePoint use and collaboration is ubiquitous – bandwidth consumed by SharePoint, specifically the documents component, increased 17-fold from the previous report in April.

- Business use of blogs and wikis grew by 39 times.

Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable.com, has written an interesting opinion piece on social media and the death of privacy for CNN.com.

Cashmore lists and discusses numerous developments in social media that threaten to blow away the idea of personal privacy, including the SenseCam – a personal camera worn around your neck that will capture an image every 30 seconds to record “every moment of a person’s life”.

While the SenseCam has great potential for people with Alzheimer’s or Dementia, it brings with it significant privacy concerns.

Cashmore states –

“It’s easy to see the associated risks of a life-logging device. From stalkers to identity theft, recording such information (and to unlock its true value, posting it online) makes us vulnerable to all manner of bad actors.

But what about the cost of not sharing? In the online realm, that might mean you simply don’t exist. ”

This idea of Cashmore’s seems like a utopian reach. It is understandable that Cashmore might feel that not sharing every aspect of your life online could mean a virtual non-existence since he has built a respectable blog empire promoting the new era of social networks and social media, but what about the problem of billions of egos worldwide sharing every moment of their lives in blog posts, camera captures, profile feeds and tweets?

Several problems come to mind, including: 1) millions of individual real-time reality shows and, 2) a billion big brothers running around recording every moment of their lives and yours.

Not to mention the pathetic people who are already starting to miss out on living because they are too busy recording their lives with constant personal updates on social media sites. What is next, personal stage-management services for these social media addicts?

Cashmore goes on to make some very good observations about social media sites like Flickr, Twitter and Facebook, noting that all of this public photo sharing, tweeting and social networking is contributing to the growth of the real-time web and a whole new way of sharing, searching and finding information.

Another good observation by Cashmore is how social media has opened up mass communication outlets for people who would not have been given the time of day in the old media world, noting that “the more content we share, the more connections and opportunities open up.”

In addition, Cashmore notes that we are living in a time where attention is the new currency and privacy is obscurity and, by inference, a form of poverty.

However, if enough people start walking around with SenseCams, no one will be able to “opt out” of the brave new world of social media.

Source: CNN.com