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More than one third of UK adults claim to use Facebook every week, while among 15-to-24 year-olds FB’s weekly reach is 79% – up from 39% in 2008, according to the IPA TouchPoints Hub Survey.
Just 4% of adults claim to use Twitter once a week or more, while the comparative weekly reach figure for Linkedin is 1.4%, the survey found.
Most of the country’s social networking activity occurs place between 6.30pm and 10pm, when 3% to 3.5% of adults claim to be active – around a third of these also claim to be watching TV at the same time.

MTV has rolled out a Facebook game and iPhone app to promo its hit reality programme Jersey Shore. The FB title gets fans of the show to take each other on in tanning lotion-throwing contests (of course). The Spread Snooki app will enable iPhone owners to slot images of Jersey Shore character Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi [...]

USA Network and digital agency Ralph have developed an online interactive game, The Farm, to promo the TV series Covert Affairs. Players have to work alongside one of the characters from the show in her role as a spy. New challenges will be posted, enabling fans to use Facebook Connect to pull in information, share [...]

VW-owned car marque Seat is rolling out an online reality programme, Seat Sex Drive, aiming to determine whether men or women make better drivers.
The brand is looking to recruit 200 car jockeys via Facebook and its Club Seat online destination. Auditions will whittle down participants to four members of both sex who will compete against [...]

So, you think you can cut it on Mad Men? The new series is set to bow this coming Sunday in the US, and programme maker AMC TV have come up with an online job interview with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. You have seven questions to tackle. brand-e got offered the position of media buyer. [...]

Discovery Communications is partnering with Hive Media to develop a social game based on Discovery Channel’s hit TV show about crab fisherman, Deadliest Catch. The new title is slated to be released in November 2010 on Facebook.
Hive’s Deadliest Catch game will allow players to experience the excitement of crab fishing, with participants acting as captains of their own boats and navigating the Bering Sea to cast and harvest pots as they aim to work their ways up the crab count leader board.

It’s time for Pampers TV. The nappy brand has launched an online series, Welcome To Parenthood, about a trio of couples’ travels through various stages of the parenting process. Infant formula maker Similac and baby food outfit Beech-Nut have also come onboard the televised venture.
Each six-minute episode, which can be viewed on Pampers.com and on the Pampers Facebook page, offers advice and takeaways from the featured couple as they tackle tasks like baby proofing their homes and the trials of potty training.

By Simon Fuller. Brands looking to immerse themselves in entertainment will no doubt be cautiously optimistic as regulator Ofcom enters the final stages of revising the broadcasting code to allow product placement in UK TV. Final consultations are taking place, and are set close in September, so it looks like brands will be able to pay for their products to show up in programming by end-2010.