Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Time: Facebook more popular than porn

Yes. It's true. Facebook is officially more popular than porn among 18- to 24-year olds.

A study done by Bill Tancer, the general manager of global research at Hitwise.com, revealed that social networking sites are accessed more often by this demographic than even traditional email accounts.

A new era in communication has arrived, and Facebook seems to be rapidly taking over.

Visits to porn sites have dropped from 16.9% of all site visits in the U.S. in October 2005 to 11.9% as of last week, a 33% decline. Currently, for web users over the age of 25, Adult Entertainment still ranks high in popularity, coming in second, after search engines. Not so for 18- to 24-year-olds, for whom social networks rank first, followed by search engines, then web-based e-mail — with porn sites lagging behind in fourth. (Read more)
While older groups of web surfers are still caught up on their virtual sexual encounters, living vicariously through a camera lens which sees more action then most of they "whackers" will in a lifetime, the younger generation is happy hunting on social-networking pages.

Now the question waiting to be answered is: can Facebook resist the temptation to commercialize, and capitalize on this massive network by going corporate.

Please, Facebook. Don't sell out. We are begging you.

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