The Guardian reports that two thirds of us now use "member communities" and their popularity is being boosted by the growing use of mobiles for internet access. MCs now make up "the fourth most popular category online – ahead of personal email," says Nielsen Online. The others are search, portals, and PC software.

Nielsen Online says:
Facebook - the world's most popular social network - is visited monthly by three in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. Facebook has its greatest reach in the UK market (47%). Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70%) of any social network in these markets.

But how far Member Communities can go to replace portals and search engines is still to be determined. Facebook is certainly going to have a go, as is Microsoft with its Live Wave 3 profile pages. Also, my experience on Twitter is that I now find more interesting stuff from other users than from most news sources, though it's nowhere near replacing Google as my home page.

Read The Guardian article here