14 DAY TRIAL // Social networks are known to be a huge timesink for Internet users but now we have the numbers to prove it. New data from Nielsen shows users spending 4 hours and 39 minutes on Facebook in June, making it the most popular destination for Internet users in the US when it comes to time spent on the site. The social network is also the sixth most visited site in the US with a little over 87 million unique visitors last month.
Facebook has now surpassed Yahoo and AOL, rising from 3 hours and 12 minutes in May, while Yahoo stagnated at 3:15 hours and AOL dropped from 3:37 hours to 2:43. The social network has been undergoing several changes in its design and especially in its philosophy, which has seen a major paradigm shift. From the “walled garden” approach, which was an integral part of the huge growth Facebook has seen in the last years, the company is moving to a much more open one, allowing and even encouraging its users to share more publicly.
While it may be Twitter's recent success that has spurred these changes, there is also the possibility that the company is finally big enough so the new openness doesn't threaten its position, though the smarter money is on the first one. Still the changes seem to be working as the social network has seen a dramatic rise in time spent.
When it comes to overall audience though, Google still reigns supreme, with 155 million unique visitors to its properties in June 2009 but with users spending just 2 hours and 31 minutes on average per month on its sites. The search giant is followed by Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL. News Corp online properties actually surpass Facebook in terms of unique visitors but even though MySpace is a big part of those properties News Corp does own other rather popular web sites.