Nielsen recently released a new report that officially documents what many of us already know, just never substantiated through data. According to a study published at the end of January 2010, Nielsen observed the online social activity of consumers around the world and discovered an 82% increase in time spent on social networking sites in December 2009. On average, users spent more than five and a half hours on popular networks such as Facebook and Twitter in December 2009. In December 2008, users clocked just over three hours on social networking sites.

While Q3 2009 data showed e-mail on top for content-sharing, February 2010 information from social optimization platform Gigya points to Facebook as the Web’s top social sharing hub.

Almost one-half of article links, videos, photos and other content shared via Gigya’s widgets are posted to Facebook, with another 29% broadcast through tweets.

Senior marketers reported that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for 2010, followed closely by digital infrastructure. While social media marketing looks set to stay top of mind, a majority of respondents considered a range of digital activities at least “important,” with only games failing to inspire widespread interest.

Via @Techcrunch

Status update services catch on with Gen Y were more likely to tweet than users ages 30 to 49, who had previously been considered the core group for Twitter.

Status updaters were more likely to belong to other social networks in addition to Twitter, and users with multiple Internet-connected devices participated in services such as Twitter at a higher rate.

Small businesses are not hitting it off with social media, according to an August 2009 study from Citibank.

As you can see on the graph more than three quarters of US small business Executives are really not convinced by social networks.

"According to an online survey by Internet2Go and MerchantCircle, 45% of small-business owners use Facebook to promote their business, and 46% have a Twitter account. In total, 53% had created a social network profile." - eMarketer

According to the “Global Web Index” from Lightspeed Research by exploring the European trends in social media involvement, the impact of social media in which we will evolve in the next months will be due to the increase of social recommandations and social media research.

If we look further, Russia and UK will lead in social networking and, on the other hand, Germany and UK will be most purchase orientated.

The social media research will definitely lead in the purchase comparison and the word of mouth will stay number 1 purchase choice according to the surveyed consumers.

And to finish, and it's not the first time we encounter such answers: motivations regarding the use of social networks are clearly defined by "staying in touch with friends" and not only on Facebook.

If you've got more than one hour to spend in front of you I really advice you to follow this conversation about the way Facebook and the social Web is changing how people connect.

Moderator: Charlene Li, Founder, Altimeter Group.
With more than 300 million active users, Facebook has become known worldwide for connecting people with their friends, family and other people they know.