Social networks overtake porn sites in popularity

The Economist predicts that in the US, social networks will overtake porn sites in popularity. ( Netmind translation)

Last year, about 13% of Internet access in America was on porn resources (the results of the Hitwise marketing research). For comparison, visits to search services accounted for only 7% of visits to the Internet.
The results of the study showed that porn sites are losing popularity. In the UK, for example, search services overtook sites for adults as early as October 2006 - according to Hitwise, for the first time since research began, some other category (except for pornography) ranked first in popularity.
In America, the proportion of attendance of porn sites is falling - people have switched to sites in the category “network communities and communication” - these are mainly social networks, such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook . Researchers expect traffic to these resources will drive traffic to porn sites literally from day to day (see chart).

At the same time, it cannot be excluded that adult sites are “socializing”, respectively, they were also included in the category of “social networks and communication”. Social networks are becoming mainstream in all areas, rather than dragging the interest of Americans from watching porn to chat.
Found using SmartMobs

Taken from here: NetMind