How people use the Web

People's favorite things to do on the Web are: using search engines, checking email, watching and sharing video clips, and social networking, in that order. That's what Forbes.com seems to be saying in "What Are People Actually Doing on the Web?" On No. 3: "There are plenty of sites devoted to the art of, well, lollygagging. Take YouTube, Americans' sixth-most-hammered site, with 75 million unique visitors last month, each of whom spent an average of one hour per visit." As for that fourth pursuit, "to be sure, social networking is still a youthful pursuit - Generation Y (ages 18 to 28) is nearly four times as likely to frequent such sites as are the 29-and-over population - but the speed at which this phenomenon has taken hold is breathtaking. Consider that back in July 2005, "Thefacebook" ranked No. 236 on Nielsen's list, with nearly 4 million unique visitors. By last month, the social networking site - now called simply Facebook - had scaled its way to No. 16, with over 34 million uniques [visitors]."