Teenagers and young adults in the UK are 25% more likely to be online than the general population and spend 24% more time online than the average internet user in April 2007, according to a new report from comScore.
“The higher use of the internet among those aged 15 to 24 reflects the fact that this age group has grown up online, demonstrating how integral the internet is to their lives,” said Bob Ivins, EVP and managing director of comScore Europe.
“The fact that teens and young adults in the UK over-index in engagement metrics like time spent and page-views is an indication of their comfort with the internet compared to the average user. Younger people use the web for communications, content, community and commerce more than other age segments.”
The five most popular sites for the 15 to 24 year age group mirrored those for the general population except for the fifth position where Fox Interactive Media, whose property MySpace boosted it to fifth place over BBC Sites, the fifth-most popular property for the overall U.K. online audience.
The comScore study revealed that many of the sites with particular appeal to the 15 to 24 age bracket fall into the Social Networking category, including Facebook.com, Bebo.com and Tagged.com. Other properties with strong teen and young adult appeal include ARTISTdirect Network and Alloy, which are news and entertainment sites.
“Web properties with a significant proportion of younger visitors represent an opportunity for advertisers to efficiently reach a younger audience with a targeted message,” added Ivins.
Recently Emarketer increased its estimate of US ad spending on social networks to $900 million in 2007.
This increase comes from two factors: increased revenue projections for Facebook and additional spending on niche and marketer-sponsored social networks. Between 2007 and 2011, US ad spending on social networks will grow 180% to $2.5 billion, says eMarketer (see US Ad Spend On Social Networks To Increase).
Meanwhile a report from In-Stat says that although social networks have been experiencing massive growth in recent years, their future remains uncertain.
The market research firm says that key issues for social networking sites are membership and monetisation and only sites that can dominate these issues will survive (see Uncertain Future For Social Networking Sites).
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