Celebs start tweeting as Twitter's UK popularity rises 10-fold in a year

by Jacquie Bowser, Revolution UK 27-Jan-09, 11:30

LONDON - Micro-blogging service Twitter has increased its UK internet traffic 10-fold over the last 12 months, landing itself among the UK's top 300 most visited sites, according to Hitwise.

For the week ending 17 January 2009, Twitter.com was ranked the 291st most visited website in the UK, up from a ranking of 2,953 for the week ending January 19 last year.

The site increased its UK traffic by 974% over this period.

Robin Goad, director of research for Hitwise in the UK, said: "Twitter was one of the fastest growing websites in the UK last year, and it shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website."

Several celebrity Tweeters have helped boost the site's UK profile over the last few weeks. Stephen Fry has over 50,000 followers, John Cleese can claim more than 30,000, and 2,000 people are following Andy Murray's progress at the Australian Open.

Jonathan Ross, who has more than 13,000 followers, has used the service to communicate with fans during his three month suspension from the BBC. Russell Brand has, this week, also joined the ranks of celebrities on Twitter.

However, the most popular Twitter user is new American President Barack Obama who has over 140,000 followers, according to Hitwise.

Although Twitter receives its largest amount of traffic from the US, its penetration is greater in the UK market.

Last week the site accounted for 0.024% of all internet visits in the UK; while in the US it picked up 0.020% of all internet visits, according to Hitwise.

Twitter is still some length behind Britain's most popular social network - Facebook, which last week accounted for 37.57% of all UK internet visits.

It is now the second most visited website in the UK after Google.