Top Internet sites are most visited by UK users unlike Twitter and others

According to the data furnished by Nielsen Online nearly half of time spent online by Britons fell upon the top 10 website brands in spite of the growing number of new Internet destinations. It is compared to just 42% of time British Internet users spent last year. Thus, the most heavily visited web destinations are Facebook and MSN/Windows Live with Apple also catching Microsoft for share of U.K. online time.

The report shows that in April 2009 the 10 Web brands on which Britons spent the most time accounted for 45 percent of all U.K. Internet time -- compared to less than 42 percent in April 2008. Even rapidly growing sites such as Twitter didn't make the top 10.

According to the data communication and entertainment are the two central themes among the most heavily used web brands. Apart from Facebook, communication accounts for MSN/Windows Live whose time is driven by its Messenger and Hotmail services while Yahoo and AOL score heavily on time due to their e-mail offerings.

Entertainment sector is led by video publisher YouTube and the technology companies Microsoft and Apple whose media player offerings -- Windows Media Player and iTunes, respectively -- are the reason they generate such high time figures.