Facebook NZ’s favourite social network

Facebook was the number one social network in NZ in May, according to Hitwise.

Facebook accounted for 39.87 per cent of visits in “a custom category of 40 leading social networks in May 2008, tightly followed by Bebo with 39.15 percent of visits”. MySpace had 7.81 percent market share, Orkut 2.86 percent and Windows Live Spaces 2.44 percent.

Facebook has attracted explosive growth in the past year amongst New Zealand Internet users, increasing 536 percent comparing May 2007 and May 2008. Facebook ranked as the sixth most visited website amongst all websites in May 2008.

Engagement with Social Networks remains high with New Zealand Internet users spending an average of 24 minutes and 45 seconds on the custom category. This is compared to an average session of 10 minutes and 53 seconds on All Categories of websites during the week ending 31 May 2008.

Top 10 websites in Hitwise custom category of Social Networks
by New Zealand Internet users, May 2008

1. Facebook www.facebook.com 39.87%
2. Bebo www.bebo.com 39.15%
3. MySpace www.myspace.com 7.81%
4. Orkut www.orkut.com 2.86%
5. Windows Live Spaces spaces.live.com 2.44%
6. Friendster www.friendster.com 2.05%
7. hi5 www.hi5.com 1.01%
8. Yahoo! 360 360.yahoo.com 0.84%
9. Yahoo! Groups groups.yahoo.com 0.68%
10. Tagged www.tagged.com 0.55%

Meanwhile, with the launch of Apple’s third-generation iPhone set for 11/07/2008, Hitwise said “visits to Apple iPhone by New Zealand Internet users increased by 348% and the website moved 1062 places to rank 300 amongst all websites during the week ending 14/06/2008″.

Also of note: “New Zealand searches for ‘plenty of fish’ increased by over 250% between 10/05/2008 and 14/06/2008, with the dating website Plentyoffish.com receiving the greatest volume of traffic from the term ‘plenty of fish’ (24 weeks ending 14/06/2008). Email Services (29.61%) and Search Engines (18.32%) were among the industries to refer the greatest share of traffic to Plentyoffish.com during May 2008. Now you know.”