Price Comparison Site Growing Faster Than Facebook

Despite the column inches devoted last year to the rise of Facebook, new figures from Nielsen Online reveal that the fastest growing website in 2007 was actually Beat That Quote.

Across 2007, Beat That Quote grew 1,165%, from 31,000 Britons in December 2006 to 392,000 in December 2007.

Facebook was the second fastest growing property, up 781% from 1.1 million to 8.9 million.

Google Search was the most popular website in the UK in 2007, according to Nielsen Online, averaging 25.1 million British visitors each month.

In terms of time spent with sites, Britons in total averaged 2.8 billion minutes on MSN/Windows Live Messenger each month – making it the most engaging website/application, overall, in 2007 in the UK.

Whereas Second Life averaged 13 hours 18 minutes per British visitor – making it the most engaging website/application per visitor in the UK.

People in Britain in total averaged 371 million sessions on Google Search each month – making it the most visited website in 2007 in the UK.

Alex Burmaster, internet analyst, Nielsen Online, said: “Google Search, MSN/Windows Live Messenger and eBay were the most popular and most heavily used single web services across 2007. Notable mentions also go to MSN/Windows Live Hotmail, which was the third most visited service in the UK, and Facebook, which had the third highest number of pages viewed (2.2 billion) behind eBay (3.8 billion) and Google Search (2.5 billion).

“Many will be surprised to see that Facebook wasn’t the fastest growing site of the year, this honour went to price comparison site Beat That Quote – a reminder that the internet provides valuable services other than virtually poking friends and acquaintances.”

At this week’s ‘Future of Online’ seminar, held by MediaTel Group, panellists expressed a view that social networking is here to stay, but the dramatic growth the sites have experienced over the past few years will settle, and marketers and advertisers will have to discover the best ways to capitalise on the format (see Social Networking Growth To Settle).

Nielsen Online: www.nielsen-online.com