Twitter overtakes MySpace in UK

Figures have revealed that Twitter is now more popular among UK surfers than social-networking site MySpace.

Statistics from web-monitoring firm Hitwise show that Twitter was the 27th most visited website in the UK for the week ending 29 August, one place ahead of MySpace.

Hitwise also noted that if third-party traffic to Twitter was taken into account, it would probably be even higher in the rankings.

"If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third-party applications such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and TweetDeck were included, the numbers would be even higher," said Robin Goad of Hitwise.

However, Goad conceded that the figures for MySpace may be slightly understated as well.

"Of course, MySpace also picks up a significant amount of traffic outside of the MySpace.com domain, particularly via mobile platforms.

Facebook remains the biggest social-networking site in terms of UK traffic, with a whopping 47.5 per cent of all visits to sites in Hitwise's social-networking category in the week ending 29 August, compared to just 2.21 per cent for Twitter.