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.

Comments

facebook

[ionix5891]

pokes google

WTF?

[Pojut]

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.

Re:WTF?

[sopssa]

Maybe CNN implies that Google searching should be more social and have a wall and status updates of what their friends have searched for. More social googling could also mean planning a trip together, searching for Linux information together, or even looking at porn together.

Re:WTF?

[Gulthek]

Actually, they are googling for facebook and getting hilariously confused with the result:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

After that article went up dozens of people found it googling for "facebook login", and then proceeded to leave scathing comments about the "new" facebook design.

Re:Interesting...

[natehoy]

They're analyzing whatever they can find so they can make up a headline "Facebook attracting more visitors than google.com" so you'll actually read it and discover it's complete tripe, but only after having seen a few ads that they get paid for.

I know when I search on Google, I go to Google.com, enter my search criteria, and then start poring through the results. When I've found what I wanted, I move to the sites that have what I want. So Google gets maybe 10 "hits", 100 if you count each page element my browser requests as a "hit".

When I go on Facebook, I'll read updates, sometimes post replies, etc. Facebook also has a much more complex page with a lot more elements. So depending on their measurement of "visits", just going to Facebook might be anywhere between 20-30 hits per brief visit to thousands of them if you count each request.

But you looked at their ads, didn't you? Their statistics served their purpose.

if you need a social network

[circletimessquare]

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