This chart showing the share of time spent online by US social networkers is interesting in that Facebook’s usage-growth trajectory is consistent over quite a long period, three years or so.
The overall picture suggests that there are only two dominant players that matter – Google and Facebook. AOL looks in terminal decline with Microsoft not looking much better. The surprise could be Yahoo which is still up there just behind Google Sites (I’m not entirely sure what “Google Sites” are).
What’s perhaps more interesting is the bit that’s not there yet: all of Q3 2011 -> Q4 2011 and into 2012, to take into account Google+ which opened as an invite-only experiment in July with the doors thrown wide open just last week; and the new Facebook.
Related: Google+ Reaches 50 Million User Mark in About 88 Days by Paul Allen on Google+.
[Later] Via ReadWriteWeb, news from Experian Hitwise showing that visits to Google+ increased by 1,269% last week – the first week since it opened to all.
RWW reports that the site received 15 million US visits, up from 1.1 million the week before. Google+ went from ranking 54th in Hitwise’s Social Networking and Forums category to ranking 8th in just one week, says RWW.
Hitwise has the visual evidence:
