WebProNews

Universal McCann's Wave study tracks social media use, and the latest one (Wave 3) gathered information from 17,000 Internet users.  They indicated that some startling growth has taken place.

 Wave 3 Study

In South Korea, Taiwan, and China, over 70 percent of all participants supposedly write a blog.  Social network participation has stalled in the U.S., but on the whole, penetration is up to 58 percent (an increase of 21 percent over 2007's levels).  And Universal McCann says RSS consumption has risen from 15 to 38 percent worldwide.

Some of the data is a little hard to swallow; as David Scott Lewis writes, "These numbers border on the fantastical."  Still, even if the 17,000 respondents weren't quite representative of the average, it seems likely that growth of some sort is taking place.

The next Wave study is scheduled for late this year; it should be interesting to see what sort of stats it provides.

As for the current Universal McCann report, the company concluded, "Social media is established everywhere there is an internet connection and it has to be considered for all advertisers, marketers and content producers as a core part of their communications.  Social media has impacted every part of the internet and transformed the role it plays in our lives."