Wakoopa, a service which tracks web app usage, has just released a study which takes a closer look at how people are spending their time online.
Analysing the Internet usage of 10,000 Dutch netizens in 2011, Wakoopa came away with some insight into Facebook’s dominance in the social networking space and Google’s hold on online search.
Search gets the most visits, but social networking takes up more time
Analysing over 27 million visits, search was the one category to come out on top, with 18.5% of all visits. It was followed by email at 11.8%, with social networking right behind at 11.4%. News and shopping snagged the fourth and fifth spots in the list.
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While search may have received the most visits, people prefer to wile the hours away on social networks. 37% of time spent online is spent on social networks, with email trailing behind at 12.1%. Adding up the first 5 categories, and it isn’t very surprising to find that 75% of Internet users’ time is spent on social networks, email, search, shopping and news.
Users spend more time on Facebook than any other social network
It might not come across as a surprise that Facebook is the most popular social network among Dutch users, but that achievement is relatively recent. It wasn’t until this past July that Facebook beat out the Dutch social network Hyves for the number one spot. That said, people are still spending a little bit more time on Hyves, albeit only just 1 minute more on average.
Facebook gets about 14 minutes of users’ time per visit, Hyves gets 15, with Google+ trailing at almost 6 minutes, followed by Twitter getting about 4 minutes and LinkedIn in last place at 3 minutes. An interesting find from Wakoopa’s data is that Dutch users are spending a little bit more time on Google+ than on Twitter.
Google+ traffic in Holland is reflective of the worldwide reception the social network has received, with a significant spike in traffic in September when the doors were opened to the public. In December Google+ received an average of 2 visits per user, a tiny fraction of Facebook’s 30 visits per user.
What Google lacks in social, it makes up for in search
When it comes to search, Google is the undisputed leader among Dutch users. The search engine has a marketshare of 95.8%, with Bing coming in a far distant second with 2.4%. The reason for Google’s dominance in the search market could be the fact that it offers localized content and products. Searches on Google.com itself make up for only 8% of the searches on Google.com itself.
Ironically the most searched for terms in 2011 are both related to social networking sites – with Hyves in the first spot, followed by Facebook in the second. Sunday also happens to be the most googled day of the week, and the day when most of the googling itself happens.
The one Google product to receive the most unique visits is Maps, making up for almost half of the visits, and Gmail getting about 36% of the visits. Calendar, Documents, News, Plus and Video split the remaining difference among them.
Local preferred over international
As with search, when it comes to both news and e-commerce Dutch users show a preference for local sources. While Dutch e-commerce site, Bol.com remains in the lead, Amazon has been playing a constant game of catchup, but still remains in second place.
➤ You can read the entire study available here, in PDF format.
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