Based on the latest data released, through a Hitwise report, Twitter usage in the UK seems to have gone up by ten times in the last one year. This also includes celebrities, such as Steven Fry, Jonathan Ross, John Cleese and Richard Branson.

This report has been made public just after Hitwise declared that Twitter’s usage in America has gone beyond that of Digg. According to Hitwise, for the week ended on January 17, Twitter was placed 291 in terms of the most visited websites in the UK. Its previous rank was 2,953, for the week.

In fact, the website has done really well in the UK in comparison with its performance in US. Twitter was ranked 291 in the UK and 350 in US, over 50 places higher. During the course of this period, the traffic to the site was up nearly 1000%. This, however, does not include the traffic from mobile handsets and that which resulted in the usage of various applications, such as Twitterrific and Tweetdeck. The average time spent on the website has also gone up from 10 minutes to 30 minutes and beyond.

If one looks at it from the perspective of overall performance, Twitter is only the 23rd biggest social networking portal in the world. It is more popular among people aged between 18 and 30, yet, user base of people aged between 35 and 44 has recorded the fastest growth.