Facebook overtakes Microsoft in UK

Facebook overtook Microsoft websites in Britain for the first time last month, becoming the UK's second-most popular website after Google, as people aged over 50 flocked to social networks, according to UKOM/Nielsen.

Facebook attracted a record 26.8 million visitors in Britain in May, a rise of seven per cent year on year, beating the 26.2 million who visited Microsoft's MSN/WindowsLive/Bing sites combined, the organisation said on Monday. Google had 33.9 million. Twitter's UK audience jumped by a third to 6.1 million, after thousands of users retweeted allegations of celebrity scandals in defiance of gagging orders, including an extra-marital affair by Manchester United football star Ryan Giggs. UKOM /Nielsen said the number of women pensioners visiting the site doubled after 'Giggsgate.'

“The growth in audiences to these social networks is now primarily being driven by the 50-plus age group. Just a few years ago, this group may have found itself out of place on these sites,” UKOM general manager James Smythe said. He said over-50 year-olds accounted for more new adults visiting Facebook in the last two years than under-50s, resulting in an age profile far more closely reflecting that of the UK online population as a whole than previously.

Older age groups were also more likely to visit Twitter, but under-18s were less likely to visit the site than two years ago—which was not the case for Facebook. LinkedIn, whose market value rose 58 per cent to $6.65 billion since its New York stock market debut last month, registered 3.6 million UK visitors in May, a rise of 57 per cent from a year earlier.