Irish internet users are flocking to social networking site Facebook, with 131,660 Irish people now using it compared to about 7,000 at the beginning of the year.
Facebook, which was founded as a private network for students at Harvard University in the US, has become the latest internet phenomenon by enabling members to easily find their friends and track what they have been doing.
The new Facebook statistics, revealed when the site upgraded its system for advertisers yesterday, suggest that the Irish are enthusiastic users of its services - even on company time.
They show that some of the heaviest users of Facebook are at competing technology and internet companies.
Microsoft has 1,160 staff using the site, followed by 320 at Google. Both companies are reported to be in the final bidding to take an equity stake in the three-year-old US website, which could value it at up to $15 billion (€10.6 billion).
University students are also heavy users of the site with 2,160 Trinity College Dublin students registered and another 1,300 at UCD. Of the 89,430 Irish users who indicated their sex on the site, 51,990 are female.
The site has just 14,260 users over the age of 35, with 55,020 claiming to be between the ages of 18 and 25.
Employers' groups have cautioned that Facebook and other social networking sites such as MySpace and Bebo are a massive drain on productivity.
The Small Firms Association has said that staff using the internet for just 10 minutes a day for personal reasons costs Irish business €575 million per annum.
"These latest stats show that the rate of increase of Facebook take-up is very strong, possibly due to college students returning to colleges in September and October," said Damien Mulley, an internet commentator who has analysed the Irish data.
He said he expects Facebook to continue to grow faster than all other social networks.
According to figures from internet tracking company ComScore, Bebo was the most popular social network in the Republic in September, with MySpace second and Facebook third.