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April 16, 2009

Europe goes nuts for Facebook

Posted: 11:31 AM ET

Facebook may have started in the U.S., but its fastest growth is now overseas in places like Europe, where it's spreading like crazy.

According to new data from comScore, Inc., which measures Internet use, Facebook now accounts for more than 4 percent of all minutes spent online in Europe - up from 1.1 percent a year ago.

As of February the social-networking site had almost 100 million users in Europe - a 314-percent increase over February 2008. In Italy alone, Facebook grew by more than 2,700 percent over the past year, suggesting that some Italians may be giving up face-to-face socializing over espressos for networking online instead.

In other news: Back on the other side of the pond, Americans conducted 14.3 billion online searches in March, a 9-percent gain over February, according to new data released Wednesday by comScore.

As usual, Google sites led the way 63.7 percent of the searches conducted in the U.S., followed by Yahoo! sites (20.5 percent), Microsoft sites (8.3 percent), Ask Network (3.8 percent) and AOL (3.7 percent).

Google search sites gained almost half a percentage point since February, while all the others dipped slightly except Microsoft, which gained 0.1 percent.

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Luca Giupponi   April 16th, 2009 3:29 pm ET

"at least some Italians are giving up face-to-face socializing over espressos for online networking instead": what a stupid thing to say....When is this country going to get over the stereotyping that makes you look so bad all over the world?

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Franko   April 17th, 2009 9:50 am ET

No one has a comment ? - Or is CNN awaiting legal analysis for the liability ?
How blogs are filtered, is a curious topic.

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Troy D   April 18th, 2009 10:01 am ET

One of the questions that I found the most interesting on another CNN page about Facebook was something to the effect of "Would you pay $1.00 per month for your Facebook account?"

Honestly, I think that I would. The access to content and more importantly an "adult" environment unlike MySpace where I can be in touch and keep in touch with my friends all over the world would make it worth it to me.

What do you think? Are you a facebooker? Enough of a FB that you would pay $1.00 per month, a paltry sum, for the services that they provide?

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Mubarak S M   April 20th, 2009 12:03 am ET

Facebook's not only growin in europe but in Africa too. Well here in Nigeria its spreadin like wild fire. Infact am on it now.

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Michelle   April 20th, 2009 5:15 pm ET

Thank you, Luca, for stereotyping us as people who stereotype you.

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George   April 20th, 2009 8:35 pm ET

Wow, Luca - are you trying to start a new stereotype - Italians are hyper-sensitive about harmless remarks? Considering that expressos were invented in Italy, and people do often socialize over expressos (or other beverages), and drinking expressos doesn't have a negative connotation, why so upset?

As you are probably aware, drinking various beverages at places like Starbucks is quite popular in the U.S., so actually, the same remark could be made about Americans, and I don't think a typical American would be offended by that.

Relax... you'll live longer.

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Cory H   April 23rd, 2009 12:08 am ET

To respond to Troy D's question about charging a dollar for Facebook per month, I have to say definitely not. As much as it may actually be worth it, I fear that would be going in a dangerous direction; No one would really miss a $1.00, but it certainly wouldn't stop there, and before we know it we'd be paying $15 bucks a month for something that ten years ago we didn't even know that we needed. Like i-pods, like cell phones, like high speed internet. Great products, but people, this has gotta stop somewhere

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Abroad on Facebook   April 16th, 2010 12:35 pm ET

[...] on Facebook No CommentaryAmplify’d from scitech.blogs.cnn.comFacebook may have started in the U.S., but its fastest growth is now overseas in places like Europe, [...]

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