SINGAPORE: Coming in just after online dating, social networking is the second-fastest growing online activity across the world over the last five years, according to research firm GlobalWebIndex (GWI), citing a 187 per cent rise globally and 242 per cent rise in Asia Pacific.
And over the last two years, mobile networking has also seen a boom, with four in 10 global internet users using mobile messaging applications. This rises to 46 per cent in Asia Pacific.
Here are some social and mobile networking insights, according to GWIs latest research, which covers 32 countries representing 89 per cent of the global Internet population.
1. Facebook is the dominant social networking site in Singapore and globally
More than nine in 10 Internet users here have a Facebook account, ahead of the global average of near seven in 10. YouTube and Google+ are also among the top three social networking sites in Singapore (69 per cent and 64 per cent respectively) and globally (51 per cent and 55 per cent, respectively).
Yet, have users behaviours changed and are more just passively consuming content on their social networks?
GWIs data showed a steady decline in users who have messaged a friend in the last month on Facebook, from 512 million in the first quarter of last year, to 313 million in Q3 this year. In Singapore, about a quarter of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ members said they have logged in to see whats happening without posting/commenting on anything myself.
GWIs Head of Trends, Mr Jason Mander, attributed this to certain direct behaviours shift(ing) to other platforms. For instance, conversations are shifting to mobile chat apps.
2. Mobile messaging services continue to grow in popularity
As of the third quarter of this year, four in 10 respondents have made use of mobile messaging. This worked out to 616 million users globally, and is a 6 percentage point increase from the fourth quarter of 2012.. The figure is higher in Asia Pacific, with 46 per cent saying they use mobile messaging.
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Facebook, WhatsApp ranked top in Singapore