Taipei, March 7 (CNA) Social Web sites are dominating Taiwan's top 100 online sites this year, with Facebook the rising star, debuting on the list at No. 2, according to an annual survey by Business Next magazine.
Like elsewhere in the world, online social networking is a major trend in Taiwan, the survey showed. Among the Taiwan sites on the magazine's list, four of the top 10 and 25 percent of the total number were social Web sites.
The ranking was calculated based on four indexes, including average ranking on Alexa.com, which ranks global Web sites; unique visitors; duration per visit; and duration per user.
Wretch.cc, a local site for blogs, photo and video sharing, topped the magazine's ranking for the second consecutive year. Established in 2004 by a group of university students and bought by Yahoo Taiwan in 2006, Wretch has been the most popular site in Taiwan for years.
But Facebook is not far behind. The Web site, which has not yet established an office in Taiwan, now has 5.06 million users -- about half of the total number islandwide. The number of registered Facebook members grew 700 percent in eight months in 2009.
Facebook was central to several Internet-related news items last year. So many Taiwanese became hooked on one of the site's flash games "Happy Farm" that government agencies, schools, corporations and military bases had to ban Facebook usage during work or school time.
The success of Happy Farm has spurred more users to join social networking Web sites and more companies have started developing online flash games.
Another development is that Taiwan's No. 1 and No. 2 Web sites are joining forces. According to Wretch, it will collaborate with Facebook because of Yahoo's strategic partnership with Facebook.
On the magazine's top 100 list, Microsoft's Windows Live and the largest Internet games discussion forum Bahamut came in at No. 6 and No. 8 respectively.
In an attempt in to tap into the power of social networking, e-commerce Web sites have also set up accounts on social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Plurk for promotion, marketing and communication purposes, the magazine reported.
Yahoo Taiwan and PCHome dominate Taiwan's e-commerce Web sites, the survey showed, as the two "giants" are battling on all fronts -- online shops platform (B2B2C) , online retails (B2C) and online auction (C2C).
Local e-commerce is expected to enjoy a strong yearly growth of 21.53 percent in 2010 as Taiwanese are forecast to spend NT$358.3 billion (US$11.2 billion) online, according to the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) of Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry (III).
In the search engine war, Yahoo is leading at No.3 while PCHome ranks fifth and Google ranks 10th in the top 100.
Video viewing and sharing is still one of the major online activities, as Youtube's No.4 ranking indicates. It has virtually become "a search engine for younger generations" and an effective tool for Internet marketing, the survey found.
Driven by the strong market growth of smartphones and 3G connection, social networking and video viewing Web sites will be looking at smartphones as their next battlefield because users will be able to "do almost everything on the Internet with their cellphones in the future," said Business Next, an information technology-themed magazine.
The "China Factor" is also in evidence, the magazine reported. Five Chinese Web sites made the Top 100 ranking and Taobao.com, China's largest e-commerce site, is hovering around the top 100 in Alexa.com's ranking.
Among top 100 Taiwan Web sites, 15 percent are information and services sites; 13 percent are official Web sites of government agencies or corporations; 13 percent are online entertainment sites; 9 percent e-commerce; 8 percent portal Web sites; 7 percent file sharing, storage and download sites; and 5 percent are news Web sites.
UDN.com of the Chinese-language United Daily News Group, which ranks ninth, is the only news site in the top 10.
As of September 2009, there were 10.6 million Internet users in Taiwan, according to III.