For the first time ever, entertainment sites have overtaken shopping sites in terms of British visitor numbers.

Statistics from internet research firm Hitwise shows that the "Shopping and Classifieds" category had been the third most popular category based on UK visits until June this year, when "Entertainment" inched up the charts to steal the spot.

Entertainment is one of the fastest growing areas online, with visits up by 12% year on year in May.

The fastest growing sub-categories within the Entertainment category are "Multimedia" (with the popularity of sites such as YouTube) and "Photography" (with Photobucket reporting record visits).

The Multimedia category is apparently dominated by YouTube – UK visits to the video sharing website are up 140% over the past 6 months.

It will be interesting to see if the .co.uk launch of YouTube announced this week affects the future stats in anyway.

>> Via - Netimperative