In the minds of some overdramatic and/or young people in the UK, it might be today, and not February 3rd, 1959, that deserves the title of "the day the music died."  That’s because YouTube UK has taken the drastic step of blocking many music videos. 

AOL, Google, Microsoft, NebuAd, Phorm, and Yahoo promise to behave.  All of these companies – along with a few others – have volunteered to honor the Internet Advertising Bureau’s just-announced set of Good Practice Principles.

This article’s going to lead off with two admissions: yes, 2008 ended a while ago, and sure, the majority of WebProNews readers don’t live in the UK.  A list from Hitwise names the 10 most searched-for brands from that year and in that region, though, and since it’s quite new and rather interesting, we’re delving into it. 

Twitter has entered the top 100 most visited websites in the UK according to Hitwise. It came in at number 91 beating out Expedia UK, Gumtree, easyJet, Digital Spy, and Money Supermarket, which Hitwise research director Robin Goad refers to as "online heavyweights."

Twitter traffic has multiplied by 27 over the last year, and this is only the main site. It doesn’t take into account access via third party applications or mobile phones.

Eric Schmidt’s support of Barack Obama made a lot of people rather upset.  A new move on Schmidt’s part may placate them, though, as the CEO of Google has agreed to work closely with Britain’s Conservative Party. 

Many companies still see Twitter is a waste of time.

However the general public does not – they are flocking to use the site.  Traffic to  Twitter has increased ten-fold (947%) from January 2008 to mid-January 2009, making it one of the fastest-growing websites of the year, according to Hitwise UK.

Even if news programs offer almost nothing other than economic information these days, it seems that a lot of people are still seeking out more of the stuff on their own.  Fresh search data from the UK reveals that people are studying some rather depressing terms.

This news could be considered an effect of the recession, a victory of friendship over materialism, or just the culmination of a longstanding trend.  But regardless, fresh numbers from comScore have put Facebook over eBay in the UK. 

Visits to social networks in the UK continue to surpass visits to adult Web sites, according to data from Hitwise.

The trend in the UK started last October when for the first time social networks became more popular than adult sites.

Hitwise says that adult sites are not surprisingly more popular with men but more than half (55%) of visitors to social networks and forums are women.

Traffic to the ever-popular Twitter has increased by 974% from the week ending January 19th 2008 to the week ending January 17th 2009. That’s a pretty dramatic increase.

This data comes from Hitwise, who reported the other day that Twitter traffic had surpassed that of Digg, a concept that some found hard to believe. Twitter’s growth in general, is not so surprising, considering the non-stop talking about the service in recent memory.

Indicators that times are tough shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and a new report from eMarketer suggests that some advertisers will respond by making cutbacks.  The research and analysis company took a close look at a few social networks, though, and believes advertisers in the UK won’t turn their backs on them too much.

Close to 4 million British shoppers went online to purchase goods on Christmas Day, spending a total of  $154 million (102 million pounds) according to a new report from the ecommerce retailing body IMRG.

People who are careful with their time and money and either live in or have a fondness for the UK should be pleased.  Yelp, the site famous for offering tons of user-generated reviews, has launched a version catering to this region.

If the importance of this presidential election has you feeling anxious, fresh stats from Hitwise may not help much.  Essentially, they act as a reminder that the world’s watching, and UK residents in particular seem to be interested in a couple of political figures.

There’s been a high volume of searches for Barack Obama since (at least) late last year.  Only on a few occasions have searches for the UK’s own prime minister, Gordon Brown, become more common.  Meanwhile, interest in Joe Biden has remained quite low even after his nomination.

Auntie, as the BBC is sometimes known, has been shoved back.  In what may or may not be a sign of the apocalypse, comScore reports that Facebook passed the BBC’s network of sites in terms of UK traffic.

According to a statement, "Facebook.com broke into the top 5 most visited properties in the U.K. for the first time in its history in September, reaching 18.4 million visitors."  This puts it behind just eBay, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google.  The poor BBC came in sixth place with 18.2 million unique visitors.