If I were to ask you to name the top three social networking sites, you could probably answer easily. If I asked you to name the next five, you might find it a bit more difficult. You may be surprised to hear that Wikipedia has a list of nearly 200 active major social networking sites across the globe. Of these, I was interested in the top 20 social networking sites in the US when building the Forrester Research Social Media Forecast, 2013 To 2018 (US).

I had several research questions in mind. Which are the top 20 social networking sites in the US? How many unique monthly visitors do they attract? How much time do visitors spend on these websites? How many visitors access these websites via mobile? Which of these websites are most important for marketers? What is the share of social media spending within total online advertising spending? How much can it grow? What will drive growth? This last question was of particular interest to me. We believe that mobile will be a key driver for social media spending growth. Here’s why:

1. More users are accessing social networking sites through mobile. As per our forecast, we expect the number of US social media users accessing social networking sites via mobile to exceed 200 million by 2018. Nearly one-fourth of them will be mobile-only social media users; the rest will access social networking sites via both PC and mobile.
2. The share of time spent on mobile social networking apps continues to increase. Social media apps are among the top apps that smartphone users use. The amount of time they spend on these apps continues to increase.  

Ten years ago, the most common way to connect to the Internet at home was via a PC or a laptop. Now, connectivity at home is increasingly being supplemented by tablets, smartphones, and other media devices, although PCs/laptops still dominate. Consumer electronics device manufacturers cashing in on this shift are offering Internet-ready capabilities in many of their devices. Although the notion of “connected devices” can be quite broad, we focused specifically on game consoles, Blu-ray players, and high-definition (HD) TVs in our recently published Forrester Research Connected Devices Forecast, 2012 To 2017 (US). Here is a brief commentary on each of these device segments:

• Game consoles: In 2012, the game console manufacturers experienced declining sales. Unlike in the past, when the introduction of a new console generally saw significant uptake in sales, Nintendo’s Wii U (launched in Q4 2012) is not expected to hit the peak sales of the original Wii. We believe that this trend will be seen more broadly in the game console industry. This is largely (though not exclusively) driven by the availability of low-cost/"freemium" titles on smartphones and tablets, which fulfill the gaming needs of the casual gamer — and have a negative impact on the console market. However, we still expect the console market to see moderate growth. By 2017, the majority of consoles will be “connected” to an IP connection because consoles are multi-purpose and allow users to do many activities online such as rent/buy movies and TV shows, purchase games, watch streaming videos, and listen to streaming music.

In 1974, an Indian Bollywood Hindi-language film was released with the title Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (English translation: Food, Clothing, And Shelter), referring to the bare minimums of life. If it were to be released today, the director of the movie would need to add the word Internet to the title because access to the Internet has become a necessity for many people over the past decade.

In a recently published Forrester ForecastView report titled “Forrester Research World Online Population Forecast, 2012 To 2017 (Global),” Forrester found that 2.4 billion people across the world use the Internet on a regular basis — i.e., at least once a month — from home, school, work, or any other location via a PC or a non-PC (mobile) Internet access device. This is expected to grow to 3.5 billion by 2017, representing nearly half of the 2017 overall world population of 7.4 billion. Our forecast provides the details of the Internet population in 56 countries across five regions.