Social networking and blogs are now the fourth most popular online activity, even ahead of e-mail, according to recent Nielsen report.

Member communites (social networks and blogs) are growing three times faster than the overall Internet and account for almost 10 percent of all time people spend on the Internet.

Two-thirds of the global online population visit sites such as FaceBook and LinkedIn, and they have become the fourth most popular online activity, even ahead of e-mail. More striking, member communities are growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest on line usage categories (search, portals, software and e-mail).

According to the Nielsen report, Facebook is the world’s most popular social network and is visited monthly by 3 out of 10 people online.

Some other interesting findings:

• The 35-49 year old age group is the fastest growing social network and blogging audience.
• Mobile is becoming more important for social networking. Twenty-three percent of U.K. mobile users visit a social network through their cell phone, while 19 percent do in the U.S. Thats up p 249 percent in the U.K. and 156 percent in the U.S. over last year.

Download the Nielsen PDF news release here.