The report found that social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, with 75.8% of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010, versus 69.7% of men.

Additional findings:

• Women demonstrate higher levels of engagement with social networking sites than men: they  account for 47.9% of total unique visitors to the social networking category, but they spend significantly more time on social networking sites than men, with women averaging 5.5 hours per month compared to men’s 4 hours, demonstrating the strong engagement that women across the globe share with social sites.
• Social networking’s reach among women is highest in Latin America, where it reached 94.1% of females online, and in North America where it reached 91% of females.  Europe saw 85.6% of its female online population visit a social networking site in May 2010, while Asia Pacific reported a 54.9% reach.

Click here to download a copy of the report.  (Registration required)

According to comScore, Facebook served 176.3 billion display ads on its site in Q1 of 2010, or 16.2 percent of the total. In comparison, Yahoo  served 131.6 billion banner ads across Yahoo’s portal, and Microsoft  delivered 60.2 billion display impressions during that period.

More details and analysis at AdAge and at paidContent.

In February 2010, 84% of Google visitors, 78% of Facebook visitors and 72% of Twitter users were from outside of the US.*

Read his post here.

*Wilson used Comscore’s “Rest Of World” phrase, which set off quite a lively debate in the comments to the post – worth a read for anyone interested in the semantics of global communities.  Wilson’s points about monetization opportunities are also worth some time.

After hitting a flat spot last fall, Twitter’s worldwide growth is pointing in the right direction again. According to worldwide comScore figures released today, Twitter’s own site attracted 73.5 million unique individuals in January, up 8% from December, 2009 (when it had 65.2 million visitors). Its annual growth rate is still a phenomenal 1,105%. A year ago, Twitter.com attracted only an estimated 6 million visitors.

ComScore only estimates activity on Twitter’s own site. Usage across other desktop, Web, and mobile apps may be twice as large as on Twitter itself.

Read more at TechCrunch.

In December, 2009, Facebook attracted 469 million unique visitors, up an incredible 31 million visitors from the month before. To put that in perspective, in a single month Facebook gained as many new visitors as Yahoo did all year. That one-month gain was also the equivalent of adding as many people as all of Digg or half of Twitter.com. Meanwhile, Yahoo lost 7 million unique visitors from November to December to end the year at 594 million unique visitors.

More details and chart at TechCrunch.

Unique visitors, page views, and total time spent all doubled as well. At the same time, frequency metrics such as average minutes per day (up 6% to 23.7) and average usage days per visitors (up 37% to 10.4) also increased.

The only key category where Facebook has dropped off this year is in average minutes per visit, down 11% to nine minutes. That’s to be expected as a result of users visiting the site more frequently. So people are making more but shorter visits. Average monthly minutes per visitor increased 45% from 170 to 247.

Amy Porterfield has written a great summary of some of the report’s highlights for Social Media Examiner.  Some highlights:

• Marketer are using Twitter most frequently, with half of the marketers surveyed updating at least once per day.  For Facebook, the largest group (33.4%) of marketers are updating weekly, and nearly 30% are updating at least once per day.
• The average minutes per visitor on Facebook in 2009 was 182.8, versus only 25.6 on Twitter
• Only the top 10% of Twitter accounts have 2000+ followers, while only the top 6% of Facebook pages have 2000+ fans

The marketing tactics most frequently used are not the ones that are the most effective. According to Amy’s summary:

• Monitoring Twitter for PR problems in real time? Only 50.8% actually tried it, 74.8% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”
• Inviting Twitter users with positive brand tweets to do something?33.2% tried it, 72.1% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”
• Contacting Twitter users tweeting negatively about the brand? 22.4% tried it, 72.3% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”
• Creating an in-person event using only Twitter invites? 13.5% tried it, 71.8% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”
• Using Facebook user data to profile your customers’ demos or interests? 25% tried it, 73.1% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”
• Creating a Facebook application around a brand? 24.6% tried it, 73.3% reported it “worked great” or “worked a little.”

Lots more details and charts at Social Media Examiner.