ComScore just released their latest stats for user-generated content sites in the UK market, and things are looking good for social networks. The top 5 UGC sites are Wikipedia, MySpace, Piczo, YouTube and Bebo - a fairly predictable lineup. Wikipedia reported 6.5 million visitors in July, up 253 percent on last year's stats, while MySpace is up 467 percent, Piczo is up 393 percent, Bebo is up 328 percent and YouTube has gone from zero to 3.9 million monthly visitors over the past year. But these sites not only attract more visits than those in other categories: they also engage users for longer. Visitors to these sites come back more often, spend longer browsing and view many more pages.
The stats have some similarities to the US, except that Facebook is notably absent from the UK list, and Bebo and Piczo aren't so popular in the US market. It's also worth noting that no statistics are totally reliable: what ComScore does confirm is that user-generated content and social networking sites are seeing massive gains worldwide (in case you didn't notice!), with different players taking the lead in different markets.