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Facebook Attracting More Visitors Than Google.com
vikingpower writes "Internet research firm Hitwise just broke the news: last week, Facebook attracted 7.07 percent of the internet traffic in the USA, compared to 7.03 percent for Google. This is the first time google.com has been out of the top spot since it surpassed MySpace in 2007, and reflects a change in the way people use internet. They tend to privilege social interaction sites above 'passive' search engines."
Facebook still has a ways to go if you include Google's non-search properties, which bring the total up to 11.03% of traffic.
What the hell is a "passive" search engine?
Come on, CNN. These people aren't saying "Oh, well, I have Facebook, so fuck Google"...they are just going to Facebook. What with Saint Patrick's day upon us and Spring Break happening in the near future, this doesn't surprise me, as a ton of people are likely using Facebook to organize parties and trips.
Living With a Nerd
Facebook still has a ways to go if you include Google's non-search properties, which bring the total up to 11.03% of traffic.
So, in other words, the entire premise of the headline/summary/article is a lie? What would the statistics for Facebook be if you only included "search properties"?
... and then they built the supercollider.
Facebook is slowly turning into the WalMart equivalent for the internet. Sure, you could go to flickr for the photos, twitter for the updates, upcoming for the events, youtube/hulu for videos, gtalk/yahoo for IM, gmail to send messages - or you could go to facebook and have all of it half-assed.
Basically a huge walled garden which is only available to those inside the wall. The trick of course, is to make it nice so that people can bring in their data easily and fb's success is because they make it damn convenient to put your data in there.
Now, do I use facebook? Damn right, I do ... because as much bitching as I do about the effect it's having on the entire internet, I gotta move with my friends or end up falling out of touch, with everybody who already knows what everybody else is doing. And in some selfish way, my friends are more important to me than the internet.
Sad, but true.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
One thing that bothers me is how Hitwise gets its data...
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/online_sidebars_backgrounders
So what does that mean? Are they analyzing DNS queries? Are they analyzing raw IP addresses? Are they analyzing raw HTTP headers? And I'd like to know more about what ISPs are signed up for this. Is it a statistical significant portion of them, or is it only a few here and there... Do those providers use high speed, mid speed or dialup connections? These are the kinds of questions that need answering to know if the conclusions that they draw are indeed valid, or if this isn't just a marketing stunt for the company...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
When I need to search for something, I put the search terms into the URL bar and Google Chrome automatically sends me to the answer page for the search query. Sometimes it even takes me straight to a Wikipedia article.
Search isn't dead, it's just transparent.
Is it only me who knows that what people do on Facebook is more of gossip spreading than anything really useful?
So, you're counting all of Facebook's assets -- including Farmville! -- while only looking at Google's core.
Sloppy and lazy. You guys should be proud of putting this on Slashdot.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
to keep up with your friends, they aren't really your friends
facebook is for ACQUAINTANCES, not true friends, even if the word you use for an acquaintance is "friend" (which makes sense to promote the word "friend" to the realm of the more dispersonal, for the sake of corporate level public relations, which is how some people run their lives)
the point is that a true friendship is its own reward. you actually commit real work and maintenance to see them because you want to do that. if it feels like a lot of effort to do that with someone, then in emotional honesty, they aren't really a true friend anymore. as soon as someone is unimportant enough to you that you slag them off to your fake corporate public relations face, aka, facebook, they have ceased to be your friend. just admit it and move on
all facebook is is a giant mask, a bit of fakery, that requires you to constantly maintain it, as long as having a fake public face is important to you for whatever reason. facebook is turning our social lives into emotionally dead corporate facades of shallow fakery
so for a little bit of genuine, psychologically healthy friendship, stop running your private life the same way a corporation runs a public relations department. facebook users, try this: the next time you make a new friend, someone you sense could be or you want them to be a close friend, make a pact with them to "keep it off the radar"
off of facebook, off of tweets, etc. when you want to socialize with them, socialize with them directly. make your emails and phone calls terse things to actually just arrange meet up times in which real socialization actually takes place
then you will know what it is like to actually have a friend
i'd rather have two or three friends like that than 200 to 300 acquaintances on facebook, that you dutifully and exhaustively maintain a corporate mask for. but inside, no one knows you and you don't know anyone else. for those of us addicted to facebook, life has become an emotionally unsatisfying slog through fake masks of constant shallow empty cheerfulness
go off the internet, make a real friend, lose the corporate pr department
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Facebook knows your name, age, location, friends, events you attend... And unlike Google, they're not afraid to give that information to whoever's willing to pay.