Social Media stats keep comming in - and its good to talk

I have been commenting on the rise and rise of social media in the Internet firmament.

I noted Heather Hopkins contribution to this meme on Monday and added BBC news about the phenomenon in Google searches.

If PR really wants to offer an effect for its clients, these are the statistics that should be on the tip of the collective indutry's tounge.

Today Heather offers more evidence.

At the risk of taking her thunder here are some of her facts:

• Adult websites are down 20% in market share of UK Internet visits comparing December 2005 and December 2006.
• Gambling websites are down 11%.
• Music websites are down 18%

• Net Communities and Chat websites are up 34%.
• News and Media websites are up 24%.
• Search Engines are up 22%.
• Food and Beverage are up 29%.
• Education (driven by Wikipedia) is up 18%.
• Business and Finance up 12%.

Google accounted for 25% of upstream traffic to all categories of websites in December. The #2 source was Hotmail, accounting for 3%, and #6 was MySpace accounting for 2%.

• Search Engines (including Google) accounted for 35% of upstream visits in December, up 13% year on year.
• Net Communities and Chat accounted for 7% of upstream visits, up 64% year on year.
• News and Media accounted for 5% up 26% year on year.