Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, recently tracked the time Britons spend online and the sites that account for the highest share in the online market. The results were as interesting and varied as the medium itself, as 10 brands accounted for 45% of total UK Internet time.

Communication and Entertainment are Central Themes Amongst Most Heavily Used Web Brands. Facebook (13%) is the most heavily used brand followed by MSN / Live Windows.

In April 2009, the average Briton spent 22 hours 20 minutes online or using Internet-related applications. This represents a 34 percent increase on a year ago when the figure was 16 hours 36 minutes. Facebook is one of the major factors in the increasing time people are spending online – the site recording 3.8 billion more minutes in April 2009 than April 2008.

Rank Brand % Share
1. Facebook 12.7%
2. MSN/ Windows Live 9.2%
3. Google 5.3%
4. EBay 4.1%
5. Yahoo! 3.5%
6. AOL Media Network 3.0%
7. BBC 2.3%
8. You Tube 1.9%
9. Microsoft 1.5%
10. Apple 1.5%

Consequently, the Other 7,625 Brands Currently Tracked by Nielsen Online are Fighting for the Remaining 55 Percent of Time Britons Spend Online.

Alex Burmaster, Communications Director, EMEA, Nielsen Online concluded that the major players have had a pretty good year which will further attract advertisers as the medium has already engaged users through the vehicles of entertainment and communication.

Facebook may be a popular hangout for youth, but it has now caught some undue attention from an anti tobacco activist has served a notice to the website, accusing it of “promotion of smoking culture” through its web pages.

Even though Facebook restricts advertisements of tobacco products through paid advertisement on its website, it promotes the same through its Fan Pages and groups, claims Hemant Goswami.

“Contrary to the claims, Facebook allows promotion of smoking culture through advertisements. We have sent a copy of links of such examples which are considered an offence under the Indian law to M/s Facebook,” he added.

Goswami said India’s law on tobacco control has a provision for imprisonment of up to five years for violations relating to prohibition of promotion or advertisement of tobacco products and brands.
Hemant Goswami is a member of the union health ministry’s National Steering Committee on Tobacco Control. He has been working for the cause for several years now and is very serious in his pursuit to end this kind of promotion of tobacco brands and tobacco products on social networking sites like Facebook.

Facebook may face ban in India, if they are not able to defend themselves.

Let’s hope the Social Networking site has enough networks to save itself…..