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Facebook’s share of the UK online usage has fallen by more than seven percentage points in the last year- raising concerns that it may have hit saturation point.The social network – which is expected to make an initial public offering (IPO) this year – still attracted significantly more online time than its nearest competitor, accounting for 52.6pc of all visits to social networks in December.

However, Facebook has lost substantial ground since the previous December, when it took a 58.5pc share of the UK’s social networking market, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

It slipped 1.3 percentage points last month alone.

The decline has raised concerns that Facebook is running out of steam in the markets where it is best established, whilst its competitors gain ground.

“Facebook’s growth is levelling out,” said James Murray, market research analyst at Experian. “Because Facebook had such a clear lead, it was always going to be difficult for Facebook to maintain [its position]. It has probably reached near enough its maximum growth.”

The figures will come as a blow to the company, which has been investing heavily in extending its reach and enticing users to click on its adverts, ahead of its long-awaited IPO. Facebook is expected to float with a possible valuation of  £65 billion ($100 billion)- the biggest technology IPO ever.

By contrast, YouTube, the user-generated video site owned by Google, grew its traffic by 45pc last year.

It accounted for just over a quarter of all UK visits to social networks in December, putting it 7.4 percentage points ahead of the previous year.

“We’re expecting video to be even more influential as a marketing channel, and marketers will have to adapt their strategies to incorporate a multi-channel approach in order to secure customers both on and offline,” said Mr Murray.

Twitter and Yahoo! Answers also made gains, but remained tiny by comparison, with 3pc and 2pc of all visits to social networks respectively.

Google’s social network, Google +, did not register in the top 10 most visited social networks at all.

However, Google grew its share of search engine usage market in the UK, edging up from a 91.3pc share of the market to 91.8pc.

Microsoft, its nearest competitor, was a minnow by comparison. Its suite of sites accountted for 3.6pc of all search engine visits in the UK in December, whilst Yahoo!’s popularity for searches fell nearly a percentage point to 2.5pc.

Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding Company has announced a £200 million investment in Twitter.The investment follows “several months of negotiations”, a company statement to the Saudi stock exchange said.

The prince, who is one of the world’s richest men, owns stakes in many well-known companies, including News Corporation.

He also has investments in a number of media groups in the Arab world.

“Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact,” Prince Alwaleed said.

Western business have been slower at adopting social networks such as Facebook and Twitter than their rivals in developing countries, according to a report by KPMG.The report found firms in China, India and Brazil were 20-30% more likely to use social media than companies in developed countries such as the UK.

KPMG surveyed 1,850 managers and 2,016 employees from 10 countries.

On average, it found that 70% of companies now use social media.

“The emerging markets seem to be quickly finding that social networks offer a relatively low-cost opportunity to leapfrog the competition in developed markets,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s head of technology, Europe.

“The rapid adoption of social media in emerging market countries may also be attributed to a lower dependence on ‘legacy systems’,” such as email, he added.

The KPMG report also found that many employees are being banned by their employers from using these networks- but that they often use them anyway.

One third of employees surveyed whose firm had blocked access used workarounds to get onto social network sites.

KPMG’s survey found that 98% managers at firms in China and 95% of managers in Brazil said they use social media at least several times a week, compared with 80% of managers in the UK.

Only 48% of UK companies use networks such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate with suppliers, clients and customers.

That compares with 72% in the US and 83% in China.

However, the report found that UK firms had fewer problems using the internet for social purposes compared with their rivals overseas.

Twitter has redesigned its service layout giving companies a greater presence on its network.The company said the enhancements would make Twitter a more “compelling destination” for brands.

The firm depends on its relationship with advertisers. At present its main source of revenue is “promoted” tweets, accounts and trends sold for cash.

A spokeswoman for Twitter said the main goal of the revamp was to make the service more simple and easy to use, rather than to focus on brands.

“If users don’t want to see a brand’s page, then they can just not visit it,” said Rachel Bremer.

The so-called “brand pages” will bring Twitter in line with similar features offered by Facebook and Google+.

A new “discover” feature highlights content from Twitter based on a user’s interests and location, an enhancement of the site’s existing hashtag system.

“We’ve simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new,” the company said in a blog post.

“You’ll see this new design both on Twitter.com and mobile phones, so that you’ll have a familiar experience any time, anywhere.”

The company said an update to its standalone app Tweetdeck would also be made available. Twitter bought the UK-developed tweeting software for £25 million in May.

Twitter said that the upgrade would be rolled out to all users “in the next few weeks”. The new features can be accessed earlier by downloading the firm’s updated mobile app.

Several brands have partnered with Twitter for the launch including Coca-Cola, Disney, Nike and McDonald’s.

The redesign allows companies more customisation over the look of their pages and the ability to show embedded multimedia.

Facebook has agreed to tighten privacy controls as part of a settlement with US regulators over yet another abuse of user data.The Federal Trade Commission said Facebook would tighten consent rules on privacy, and close access to deleted accounts in 30 days or less.

The case began in 2009, when Facebook changed settings to make public details users may have deemed private.

In a blog post, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company had made a “bunch of mistakes”.

But he added that this has often overshadowed the good work that the social networking site had done.

Facebook had addressed many of the FTC’s concerns already, he said.

The FTC said Facebook, which has 800 million users, had agreed to get consumers’ approval before changing the way it shares their data.

Facebook did not admit guilt and was not fined, but it was barred from “making any further deceptive privacy claims” and will undergo regular checks on privacy practices, the FTC said.

“The proposed settlement requires Facebook to take several steps to make sure it lives up to its promises,” the FTC said in a statement.

That includes giving consumers “clear and prominent notice and obtaining consumers’ express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established”.

Mr Zuckerberg said in his blog: “We’re making a clear and formal long-term commitment to do the things we’ve always tried to do and planned to keep doing – giving you tools to control who can see your information and then making sure only those people you intend can see it.”

The settlement follows a similar agreement in March between the FTC and Google over the web search firm’s own social network, Buzz.

UK shoppers are buying more online products and services and at a faster pace than many other countries- a survey of global shopping habits by KPMG has found.Seventy seven per cent of British shoppers prefer to buy goods like CDs, DVDs, books and video games online – compared with 65% globally.

But when it comes to mobile banking, consumers in the UK are more reluctant than those in other parts of the world.

KPMG surveyed 9,600 consumers aged between 16 and 65, across 31 countries.

When buying goods or services, the majority of customers (both in the UK and globally) now said that they look at social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and online review sites.

“From buying goods on their mobile phones to keeping up with friends on social networks, consumers are increasingly reliant on a range of technologies that perform important – yet often overlapping – tasks,” said Tudor Aw, KPMG’s European head of technology.

“This new ‘converged lifestyle’ will have huge implication for retailers.”

Eighty eight per cent of respondents in the UK and worldwide reported downloading an app to their mobile.

In the UK, 74% of consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and holidays online and six in 10 used some form of online grocery shopping.

In the US, by contrast, the same amount would book flights but only 21% said they were more likely to buy groceries online.

But when it comes to mobile banking, only 27% in the UK said they had used some form of mobile banking in the past six months.

That compares with 52% globally – a massive jump from just under 20% in 2008, according to the audit firm.

Consumers in the UK are also more reluctant to embrace the cloud – storing their data online rather than on their own computers – with 53% of respondents saying they do some compared with 65% globally.

“The report also shows that consumers’ concerns over privacy and data security have increased over the last few years and companies across all sectors need to take this concern seriously,” Mr Aw said.

As it’s now December and people are opening the first windows on their Advent calendars Dr Search thought we would give you some insights for the Twelve Days of Christmas 2011 online. The 12 Insights of Christmas 2011

1. This December 350 million hours will be spent shopping online by the UK Internet population. This translates to an average of 8 hours and 45 minutes spent per person on shopping websites over the course of the month.

2. 2.1 billion visits will go to online retail sites in December with new record peaks in traffic both pre and post-Christmas.

3. Lego will be the most searched for toy this Christmas, in particular Lego Star Wars games and sets.

4. Cyber Monday (5 December) will be the biggest pre-Christmas shopping day online with 85 million visits to retail websites from UK Internet users.

5. Monday 19 December will be the biggest day of December for online Grocery visits as people do some last minute food shopping but also check store opening times across the Christmas period.

6. iPhones will be a third more popular online than iPads this Christmas. If search intent was reflected in sales, for every 3 iPads Apple sold this Christmas they would sell 4 iPhones.

7. Facebook will see a new peak in UK Internet visits as friends share messages of good will with one another. 25 million hours will be spent on Facebook on Christmas Day alone.

8. Searches for the post-Christmas sales will start earlier than ever this year, with eager shoppers starting to do their research online as early as Christmas Eve.

9. Friday 23 December will be the biggest day of December for retailers receiving traffic from email as the multi-channel retailers prepare their customers for the post-Christmas sales.

10. The fashion sector will be the most reliant on Facebook traffic this Christmas, with TopShop, River Island and ASOS among the biggest recipients of Facebook traffic.

11. 12 million hours will be spent watching video clips on BBC iPlayer this Christmas with the biggest driver of traffic being the Dr Who Christmas special.

12. Hull will be the online shopping capital of Britain of December 2011, with proportionally more people doing their Christmas shopping online than any other city in the UK.

These twelve days of christmas online insights were initially research by Hitwise.

Google has announced that it is dropping seven more products in an effort to simplify its range of services.The out-of-season “spring clean” brings an end to services including Google Wave, Knol and Google Gears.

It is the third time that the US firm has announced a cull of several of its products at the same time after they had failed to take off.

Experts said the strategy might put off users from signing up to new services.

Google announced the move in its official blog.

“We’re in the process of shutting a number of products which haven’t had the impact we’d hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward,” said Urs Holzle, Google’s vice president of operations.

“Overall, our aim is to build a simpler, more intuitive, truly beautiful Google user experience,” he added.

The seven latest products earmarked for the chop are as follows:

• Google Wave – an attempt to combine email and instant messaging for real-time collaboration
• Google Bookmarks List – a service which allowed users to share bookmarks with friends
• Google Friends Connect – allowed webmasters to add social features to their sites by embedding a snippet of code
• Google Gears – much-hyped effort to maintain web browser functionality when working offline
• Google Search Timeline – a graph of historical query results
• Knol – a Wikipedia-style project, which aimed to improve web content
• Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal – a project which aimed to find ways to improve solar power

It has now given details about when the switch-offs will occur. For example Wave will be retired in April, and Knol content will be taken offline in October.

Some experts think that Google is streamlining in order to concentrate on its Facebook rival Google+.

The network gained 10 million users within the first 16 days after its private launch, and 40 million within the first 100 days, making it the fastest-growing social network in the history of the web.

Visits to video sharing websites by UK users have gone up by more than a third in the last year.The biggest driver of traffic to those sites is music videos (33%), followed by TV shows (17%), film (11%), gaming (10%) and news (9%).

The figures, from internet research company Experian Hitwise, show YouTube accounts for nearly 70% of all video website hits.

It’s now the third most popular site in the UK after Google and Facebook.

Lady Gaga was the most in demand for artist within music searches.

The research was gathered between September 2010 and September 2011.

During that time 240 million hours every month were spent by British internet users watching videos online.

UK’s top 10 websites:

Google UK
Facebook
YouTube
eBay UK
Windows Live Mail
MSN UK
Google.com
BBC News
BBC Homepage
Yahoo! UK & Ireland

Research by Experian Hitwise

Illustrating its dominance in this area, Google owned YouTube, clocked up 184 million of those hours.

That number is still dwarfed by the amount of time spent on social networking sites though.

The same research shows 800 million hours were spent each month on sites like Facebook and Twitter by the UK’s internet users.

Despite YouTube’s dominance of video sharing websites there was also strong growth for other ones too.

BBC iPlayer, the second most popular video site, experienced a 22% rise in traffic last year.

That means the number of visits to the site has doubled in the last three years.

LinkedIn now has over 120 million users worldwide, including six million in the UK. Two new members join every second and there are nearly one million groups on the site.

It is now the mainstream tool for professionals to network online – and that is why it can’t be ignored as a marketing tool.

An increasing number of businesses are promoting their brands through staff profiles and presence on LinkedIn.

However, making the most of the social media website is a science- as with all social media websites information and security are key issues.

Here are some hot tips on how you can market your business successfully through Linkedin:

• Tell a compelling and authentic story about who you are, how you got to where you are, what you do and why you enjoy it. It is critical that a profile is “personally professional”. Individual profiles that only talk about the company or brand are a big turn off. Encourage your staff to take the same approach.
• Join relevant discussion groups and get involved in them. This can be interesting and rewarding and helps to raise your company’s profile.
• Make sure that your profile and all employees’ profiles link directly to your company page. An individual’s profile should also include information about your company, its products and offerings.
• Ensure you have a comprehensive company page including detailed pages on all products and services.
• Ask for and publish recommendations from satisfied customers for your products and services section on your company page.
• Ensure staff have profiles that are 100 per cent complete. LinkedIn is not like Facebook – individuals are representing a company or brand in a professional capacity on LinkedIn. The more visible your staff are on this network, the greater the visibility of your brand. But this only works if your employees are actively using their LinkedIn account.
• Encourage employees to use blogs, PowerPoint presentations and videos promoting your brand in their profiles and help them with the material.
• Provide guidelines on how to effectively communicate, reminding staff that their activities are representing the company- and can be read my literally millions of people- including your competitors.
• Provide all staff with copy to use to describe your company within their profiles. This ensures a consistent approach and helps avoid disclosing commercially sensitive information to competitors.
• Start your own group to build a community where you can indirectly promote your brand.
• Remember that search engine optimisation is important for every article, profle and group. LinkedIn allows open profiles which means that the search negine will alos pick up on your activities.