Comscore has published a graph on its datamine site that again shows how Facebook has shed its student roots to become completely mainstream.   According to Comscore, Facebook is now the second most popular website among the over 55s, after AOL, and ahead of the BBC and Google.

In other words so-called silver surfers are now spending more time on the world’s no 1 social network than they are reading the news or searching Google.   Comscore also tells us that the over 55s spend more time than other age groups on ebay and property website Rightmove.

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TNS has come out with the follow-up to its December 2008 (global) Digital Lives study – the results of which (for example – 47% of UK housewives leisure time is spent online) are still very much used today.

This latest piece of research involved 50,000 interviews across the 46 countries accounting for 90% of the world’s Internet population.

The study is enormously comprehensive, so to take three findings:

1 – First of all as reported in various media outlets such as the BBC today, the countries where people have the highest no of social media friends are Malaysia (233), Brazil (231) and Norway (217).   The numbers for the UK, US and Australia are 164, 178 and 143 respectively.    Japan however ranks bottom, with the average Japanese social networker having 29 friends.

2 – The two countries where people have the highest number of friends are both emerging economies and TNS says that though Internet penetration is lower outside the West, consumers that are online there are more likely to be active social media participants.    So for example, Egypt (56%) and China (54%) have much higher levels of digital engagement than mature markets such as Japan (20%), Denmark (25%) or Finland (26%)

3 – TNS says that globally once you are online, you are likely to use the Internet as a daily media of choice.  61% of online users use the internet daily against 54% for TV, 36% for Radio and 32% for Newspapers

The best bit of the study?  The interactive site – Discover Digital Life (sadly in flash so forget viewing it on your iPad) – where you can mouse over key country stats and also take screengrabs of two countries side by side.   Here for example we have the US and Australia.

Thanks TNS, that’s pretty much enough info to fill presentations for the rest of the year!

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• Japan has least digital friends (bbc.co.uk)
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I’m coming to this a few days late due to being in transit to Cow Africa, but UK comms regulator OFCOM has published it’s regular digest of facts and stats. Among other things, the look at adult media literacy reveals that online TV watching is relatively high in the UK.

In particular, 29% of Internet users, watch TV online or download programmes or films. This is largely driven by broadcasters such as the BBC and its iPlayer service, but it means that with 73% of the UK population online, over one in five adults (21%) watch TV over the Internet.

The research also shows that Internet usage among seniors is on the increase, with 41% of the over 65s now online. The Ofcom report also refers back to earlier data about most missed media – I personally use this stat time and time again, especially as it shows that TV is less and less of a ‘can’t live without’ for 16-24 year olds and that for them, mobile phones have pushed PCs+Internet into third place (NewTeeVee has the chart).

The statistic about Brits watching TV online is interesting. It shows that if the content and ways of watching it are good enough, the uptake will reflect that. And that content is what people are used to seeing on their TV screens.

For instance, despite all the talk about the growth of online video and reach of the You Tubes of this world, a report in the summer by Comscore found that these sites capture around 10 minutes of the average US Internet time, and 15 minutes for the UK.

Image – Mr Phillip

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