This week in social media: 57% of Brits use social media, a geeky proposal, Jesus beats Justin Bieber on Facebook!

This week sees almost two thirds of Brits now use social networks, Tumblr still attracting record number of visitors, did Facebook kill of Places too soon, a very geeky proposal, the car for social network addicts, and Justin Bieber only has the second most engaged Facebook fans – stay tuned to find out who number one is!

Majority of Brits now use social networks

According to the Office of National Statistics for the first time the majority of Brits over 16 are now using social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Overall 57% of adults have used one or more of these platforms this year compared to only 43% last year. And guess what, women are apparently more eager about creating online friendships than men. What can we say, we like to have big groups of friends off- and online. Makes us feel all loved. That said, men are almost twice as likely to have used the more ‘professional social networks like LinkedIn compared to women.

Tumblr’s popularity continues as July saw 13.4 million unique visitors
With Jux entering the blogosphere Tumblr might have been worried for a second or two, but as the July figures from comScore show it is still attracting a record number of visitors each month as the multimedia-focused microblogging platform scored 13.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. alone. That is up 218% from the same time in 2010, making it one of the fastest growing consumer-oriented internet sites over the past year.

A geeky proposal – and we love it!
When Google engineer Ari Gilder wanted to propose to his girlfriend Faigy he came up with this great idea. He created a custom app ‘The Big Question’ that sent Faigy on a romantic scavenger hunt using Google Maps around New York City filled with memories of their relationship. Faigy had to answer several questions correctly throughout the route which she then entered into the app to ‘unlock’ the next location. At the final location Ari stood waiting with the Big Question. Guess what Faigy answered… And it is all oh so adorably geeky!

Did Facebook kill Places too soon? Had 4 times more check-ins than Foursquare…
Think several of us were a bit surprised when Facebook canned Facebook Places the other week. Sure, it needed some TLC to be maximised to the fullest, but it was fairly popular according to figures by Visit Britain that claim Places had four times the number of check-ins compared to Foursquare at the time of digital death. ShinyShiny thinks Facebook might have canned check-ins a bit too soon, but we’re sure Zuckerberg and Co. has more surprises up their sleeves.

The social media ministry: Justin Bieber is second to Jesus Daily in engaged fans on Facebook
Yep, that’s right. The Bieb is only second when it comes to the number of engaged or highly active fans on Facebook. But he did only lose out to Jesus and Jesus Daily. So the most ‘popular’ man on Facebook is Dr. Aaron Tabor, a diet physician and medical researcher, who set up the page in 2009 as a hobby and now has some 8.2 million Facebook Page fans. Pop darling Justin Bieber has 35 million plus fans, but they don’t interact as much as Jesus Daily’s fans. Jesus 1 – Bieber 0. Actually come to think of it, don’t think Bieber is too disappointed to be beaten by Jesus, as he recently got the Hebrew word for ‘Jesus’ inked on his upper body.

Foursquare adds five new languages
In its second wave of global language expansion, location-based social network Foursquare has added five new languages to its app: Bahasa Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Thai. And as a result, according to a Foursquare blog post, the use of the app in the countries where those languages are spoken has since “exploded” – go figure. oi! привет! 안녕! hai! and สวัสดี! Foursquare.

The car for social networkers
If you, like us, are addicted to social media and enjoy spending countless of hours chatting to your virtual chums you might get excited about this new car from Ford. The Evos plug-in hybrid is apparently so smart that it can socially network with its driver’s friends and recommend roads and routes that are quickest or most fun to drive and is always connected to his or her ‘personal cloud’. If it will manage to give you a “seamless lifestyle between home, office and car linked by access” to your personal information we don’t know but we’d love to find out! But sadly we won’t be able to drive it anytime soon…

Foodily Facebook app streamlines feed for shared recipes
Facebook is a great thing, but can also get quote annoying when people start sharing just one thing… like baby news… or recipes! So if you’re one of the latter you might fall in love with the Foodily app (sorry but if you belong to the first group I have already blocked your updates. You are more than welcome to block my shares of LOL kittehs if you wish). For now all cooking enthusiasts can get a dedicated, real-time feed of the recipes Facebook friends save on the site and dip into your friends’ recipe boxes for inspiration.

Zara Phillips: The unsocial royal
The Queen is here, there and everywhere, Clarence House uses it to announce royal engagements, and there are numerous fake accounts set up in the name of the English Royals. We’re of course talking about social media, more specifically Facebook and Twitter. However, there is one young royal that we’re not likely to see tweeting about horses anytime soon and that’s newlywed Zara Phillips. In an interview with Tatler, Zara has said she’s not a fan of social media and that she thinks Facebook is ‘dangerous’. We hear you Zara, just think about all those Facebook photos of you as the “royal rebel” that would be tagged. Best to stay off it! Do you know anyone who is against social media? I did, but then they joined…

And to round off this week in social media…

Here are the 10 best YouTube cat videos according to ShinyShiny.

By @elisabethLDN