Social Networking Now Trumps Email: Nielsen

Social networking has become more popular than email—but that popularity hasn't translated into profitability, a new Nielsen study finds. Social networking "member communities" such as Facebook are now the most popular Internet activity, according to Nielsen's figures, attracting 67% of global Internet users and still growing fast. Email trails at 65%, Adweek reports.

The social-networking juggernaut is sucking users away from Internet portals, the Nielsen study finds, but ad revenue is lagging far behind the boom. "It will take time to work out the magic formula for successfully advertising in social networks," the study notes, concluding that an ad model "built on the principle of two-way conversation" would likely only be arrived at through trial and error.
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