This is Web 2.0’s day in the sun. Since Yahoo! bought del.icio.us last December, traffic to the site has more than doubled. In July, user-generated content sites made up five out of the top ten fastest growing Web brands. What’s more, the traffic to particular social websites is neatly compartmentalized into demographic packets, which speaks to the advertising power these sites can offer.

Hitwise reports that from a sample of 10 million US Internet users, the market share of visits to del.icio.us spiked 122% from January to July 2006. Though that type of growth is eye-catching, Hitwise’s LeeAnn Prescott notes that the social bookmarking site is still only ranked 6,793 among all Websites.

So why should a marketer care that the site has gone from so-so traffic to moderate traffic? Prescott reveals who uses del.icio.us. The majority of its users are males between the ages of 25-34 with household incomes between $100k-$150k. They are members of the “Urban Uptown” and “Elite Suburbs.”

“Members of these social groups have higher than average incomes and tend to be highly educated and are more likely to be early adopters of technology,” writes Prescott.

“My guess is that they’ve heard about del.icio.us through news media or through friends and are using it because it’s ‘the thing to do.’ This is not quite the MySpace crowd that I expected to find.”

The gallery-hopping, wine and cheese, Shakespeare Festival, plasma TV crowd. Marketers let out a collective “cha-ching.”

According to Nielsen//Netratings, social networks are storming the up-and-comers list, iPod and camera phone in hand. Though MySpace, at a 183% growth, is still the industry leader, squatting above Google, eBay, MapQuest, and Yahoo! year-over-year, the cultish social media site dominated by the hormones-and-term-paper crowd, sits 9th on the list of top growing sites for June and July.

With Wikipedia (181% growth) scuttling close behind in 10th place, MySpace was topped in growth by ImageShack (233%), Heavy.com (213%), and Flickr (201%).

“User-generated content sites have seen significant growth over the past year, owing in large part to their reliance on viral marketing,” said Jon Gibs, director of media analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. “They also benefit from their cost-effectiveness – the content is practically free.”

As they grow, and demographic information becomes more detailed, expect to see these sites as the premiere ad real estate on the Web, where marketers can do less fishing and more targeting.

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