Facebook Attracting More Visitors Than Google.com 173
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.
facebook (Score:5, Funny)
pokes google
google (Score:3, Funny)
pokes facebook
Steve Ballmer (Score:3, Funny)
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WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come on, CNN. These people aren't saying "Oh, well, I have Facebook, so fuck Google"...they are just going to Facebook.
Not only are they going to Facebook, they're also Googling "facebook login."
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they're probably googling Facebook.com instead of just typing it in the address bar. I've seen people do stuff like that. Hell, I always just google "urban dictionary" rather than type in urbandictionary.com..
Besides, by the very nature of facebook you will be navigating around a lot more looking at photos and such, whereas with google you often just need to have the main page, and one page of results. Admittedly if you're browsing for porn or similar you also probably will go through several pages of photos/results.
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Your browser probably has a quick search keyword feature, so instead of going to google "urban dictionary", you could type something like "slang [term]" or even "ud [term]" om your address bar
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So can Firefox - just create a bookmark.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
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 [readwriteweb.com]
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.
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Facebook has how many million people? It doesn't take too many percentage wise to add up to over a thousand people... and they probably comment on everyone's "wall" so leaving a comment on a blog post isn't too different.
On the plus side, that guy probably amassed a few thousand facebook logins...
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It looks like they used the Facebook Connect button to leave a comment, hence the F pictures and names in the comments.
Still, hilarious.
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Thanks for posting that link. The 'tard quotient is high in that comments section.
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I just lost most of my remaining faith in humanity. That actually ruined my day.
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Win of all wins =)
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Actually they're probably googling Facebook.com instead of just typing it in the address bar.
Well, yes. That was the entire point of my post, it was a reference to the ReadWriteWeb [readwriteweb.com] incident mentioned by other correspondents. Sometimes I wonder if slashdot users are any more intelligent than those who tried to log in to Facebook via the ReadWriteWeb article.
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I got your point and was just saying how crazy it is that people often know the actual address but still prefer to Google it. Looking at that article people are even more stupid than I had previously suspected though. It was almost like YouTube in there.
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Uuuum, do you know that there is a keyword search built into Firefox (and Opera for that matter)
You can right-click on a input field of a form, and choose to create a keyword search. Enter the keyword, and off you go.
To search on urban dictionary, I do “ud myquery” for Youtube its “yt”, etc. That’s what it’s there for.
I even removed my search field, removed all buttons, and moved the URL field to the left of the menu. Which makes FF really slim. Nobody needs buttons anymo
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I'm using Chrome.
Although I'm sure I could implement something like that in Gnome-Do with browser plugins, then I'd just hit win-space and type "ud word" or whatever. For the amount of times that I actually look up stuff on Urban Dictionary (maybe once a week) or Youtube (almost never) it wouldn't really be worth my time though. When I want to look up a word I usually just google define:word (in Chrome the address bar doubles as a Google search box), with a normal Google search or Urban Dictionary as my bac
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You can turn off auto-completion in your Google preferences. I don't know about the fade in stuff though, because I've taken to just using Chrome's address bar as my Google search box! And before that I was using iGoogle. I vaguely remember seeing stuff fade in on the Google homepage one time, but I can't remember what it actually did.
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Throw in a press of Esc before the tabs and you're good to go.
Actually, if you're going for speedy: use your browser's search function. In Opera, enter "g [term]" into the address bar to get to the Results page, or add google.com/search?q=%s&btnI (that's a capital i, not an l) as a custom search engine to get the results of an "I'm feeling lucky" query. In firefox, just type the search terms into the address bar. Depending on how popular the first hit is, you'll either get redirected instantly (works fo
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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WAN parties?
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Ummm, like Google Buzz?
Google is moving away from "Do no evil" to "extend, embrace and exterminate". By the looks of it, Google Buzz has been another Google flop though.
Facebook has their fair share of flop elements, such as their privacy (or lack thereof), which made the news but hasn't really scared too many people away. Considering how many games requests I've gotten from people I know, when I check my messages on there once every few months, they're still
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, as the Internet gets more popular, the average technical ability of the users will decrease, and it will be used less often, overall, as a research tool for people looking for information about development/physics/whatever, and more for entertainment (watching tv/movies, listening to music etc).
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much. People learn what sites they like.
I spend a decent amount of time at Slashdot, several other message boards, my Gmail account, Wikipedia, and Facebook. Another significant chunk of my monthly usage is tied to downloading P2P content, podcasts, and online gaming - all have separate non-web interfaces.
In the end, I know a lot of where I want to go, and I can go there these days without needing to search for it. Don't get me wrong I still Google plenty, but it's not 1995 when every time I want to do something on the web I need to go searching for it.
Re:WTF? Facebook users are aliens. (Score:2)
It's a bullshit marketing term (Score:2)
"passive" search engine (Score:2)
Wikipedia could be considered a passive search engine. The bulk of everything there was put there manually by the various contributors. Sure, there are bots clearing out dead links, and translating from one language to another, or from one wiki to another, but they work on the wiki itself. They don't go out actively searching for new information.
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The very definition of a search engine [merriam-webster.com] prevents it from being passive :-)
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OK (Score:4, Insightful)
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"?
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Facebook is a one trick pony (Score:2)
So Facebook hits exceed Google Search hits. That's an interesting trend. But Facebook is a rather one dimensional tool, while Google represents practically everything people do on the Internet. They can't really be compared, in my opinion.
Millions of people (myself included) log onto Facebook several times a day to check their friends' status, and update their own status, and engage in banter with friends. It's a casual, superficial, but fun way to keep in touch with people that you'd otherwise have to
In other news (Score:4, Funny)
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Yeah, I almost expected "Buzz" to be an app where you raised bees. Is that a sign that I need to spend less time on Facebook?
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Yeah, I almost expected "Buzz" to be an app where you raised bees.
You mean like Halo 2 [wikipedia.org] or like I'm a bee, I'm a bee, I'm a I'm a I'm a bee [wikipedia.org]?
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More as in...
"(user) has lost a baby bee in Buzz! Awwwww. Looka da cute widdwe bee! And it's lost and alone! CLICK HERE to help find it!"
"(user) has sent you some HONEY from BUZZ! CLICK HERE to collect it and start farming your own!"
"(user) just got a NEW QUEEN and is starting a new hive in Buzz! CLICK HERE to get your FREE QUEEN and start your own hives!"
"(user) just burrito-farted and killed off 45 WORKER BEES in Buzz! CLICK HERE to send (user) some VIRTUAL BEANO and a VIRTUAL SYMPATHY CARD!"
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Obviously it requires GNOME.
The Stripmall Effect (Score:5, Insightful)
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 [dotgnu.info], 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.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
While you made some great points, you're about two years too late:
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/internet-and-strip-mall-effect [fastcompany.com]
Re:The Stripmall Effect (Score:4, Insightful)
So fall out of touch with them. There is nothing social about social networks.
WTF is this, Straw man 2.0? (Score:2, Insightful)
Social networks are anti-social. The status update was invented to massage the ego of the user, and the shear mass of trivia people spew out, blocks real interaction.
Drop the anti-social networks, and you will have less unsigned int friends, but more time to spend with your real friends. (If it makes you feel better you can still write how many friends you have on the wall in sharpie)
There are also better tools than facebook, twitter etc, to keep connected with a small non-broadcasting oriented group.
Re:WTF is this, Straw man 2.0? (Score:5, Funny)
I thought these social networks give you complex and irrational friends. I don't very much care about transcendental relationships. I'd rather like my friends be all natural, thank you very much.
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Social networks are anti-social.
You're still an idiot.
The status update was invented to massage the ego of the user
And therefore can't serve to keep you up to date with friends somehow. Nice strawman yourself.
and the shear mass of trivia people spew out, blocks real interaction.
You know, you can block people who have nothing interesting to say, so that you can actually talk to people you want to talk to. Another nice strawman.
Drop the anti-social networks, and you will have less unsigned int friends
WTF indeed. I have no idea what this means.
There are also better tools than facebook, twitter etc, to keep connected with a small non-broadcasting oriented group.
Which I'm sure none of my friends or family use. I signed up to Facebook because the entire rest of my family uses it, and that's how my last family reunion was planned. I was completely out of th
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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.
You know, they just opened up their chat over Jabber, right? I just added another account in Empathy, (you can do it in any chat client that support Jabber, like Pidgin, and many, many others) and now my friends keep messaging me when I'm asleep, wondering why I'm still online.
I actually like it, I can chat with friends on the site, without having to be on the site.
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Falling out of touch? The friends I have are just a phone call away. I have an account on FB but if I really care about someone, I don't need it to stay in touch with them.
if you need a social network (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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This is not necessarily true. I've lived in 4 different US states in the past 6 years. Status updates for a period can be enough to keep that relationship going to the point that if I called them tomorrow it would not be a 2 hour conversation around catching up so much as "Hey, I have a 4 hour layover passing through Las Vegas on my way to Chicago next week, want to try to grab lunch?" or "Saw you were going to a convention in LA, I live about 90 minutes from there, think you'll have time to grab a beer?"
Th
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To try to make it seem like that is somehow anti-social and I don't have real friends is moronic. I don't maintain some sort of fake personality. I'll throw up a link or something if I thi
again (Score:2)
you are defining the word friend downward towards what you are really describing: an acquaintance
either you've never really had a friend, and all you know are acquaintances, or you've simply forgotten what a real friendship is like, or you are a little bit of shallow empty fluff yourself, and this is all you aspire to
facebook turns people into public relations departments. this is not true friendship. of course, you can still call it "friendship", but only in the lamest, shallowest sense of the word
there are shallow people in this world (Score:2)
and they will tell you, without a sense of doubt or irony on their part, that they think that their shallow life of dozens of people who are simply their acquaintances, is no worse than someone with only a handful of deep and meaningful relationships, with genuine friends
i think that there are people whose masks are on so tight, that they don't understand, believe in, or have not yet experienced, the idea of complete honesty with a dear friend. objectively speaking, i think the emotional life of such people
if you work 11 hour days (Score:3, Insightful)
then your only true friend is your job
whether you disbelieve or dislike or protest this fact is besides the point. its simply objectively the truth about the quality of your life
you don't work 11 hour days and have rich friendships outside your job. its simply not possible, unless they are with people at your job
which is fine: plenty of people have traded in their quality of life in order to get ahead in their careers, if only temporarily. but you need to admit what you are doing to yourself, and stop fooli
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What year are you living in? What site are you posting this garbage to? Your definition of "Friends" only being people you actually see in person on a very regular basis went out solidly with the invention of the telephone and the argument could be made even farther back to any sort of transmittable communication (read: the printed word).
When a friend of yours moves away are they no longer your friend? When your financial situation worsens so you have to work long hours to pay the bills do you de-friend
you don't have to "trade them in" (Score:2)
you just have to admit that there are two realms in your life:
1. friends: 2 or 3 you are intimate with emotionally on a daily basis
2. acquaintances: dozens of people on the periphery. this is in flux: these people can become friends, or move out of your life, or stay on the periphery for a long time. such as family and "friends" you only see a few times a year. go ahead continue calling them "friends" if it makes you feel better, but that is not objectively what they are. they are acquaintances. it is not p
no, i disagree with you (Score:2)
it fills you with warmth to describe your acquaintances as friends, but they are simply not your friends, objectively speaking
people used to correspond with each other in longhand script individually. then it was the occasional phone call and greeting cards. now, the value of facebook is it makes this job of acquaintance maintenance easier, automatic, and corporate. but therefore also more impersonal. not that that matters, since we're only talking about acquaintances, not true friends. so you can visit a w
fair enough (Score:2)
but consider what your friendship with the guy in australia would be like
if you actually saw him every day
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No. You're not listening.
I converse directly with my friends over long and rambling conversations via email on a daily basis. Obviously, browsing facebook for 20 minutes isn't friendship, but talking, debating, sharing viewpoints and intimate experiences is friendship. I see and talk to 100 people face-to-face every day at work, but they are not friends. Friendship is about how you interact, and not about whether you are in the same room as the other person.
You seem convinced that you are more than an e
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It sounds like you're arguing with a strawman instead of the people responding to your posts.
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In other words, what Google and Yahoo! and many others have tried to do - become the One Site To Rule Them All.
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upcoming for the events
I've never heard of this one. Could you describe how useful it is compared to MeetUp.com, Google Calendar, Facebook invites, or eVite.com?
Specifically, I want an online invitation system where I can set a "Max RSVP Number" so I can put a ceiling on the number of people who come to events that I host. Honestly, I *want* to be able to invite the whole world when I hold desirable events, but it's a matter of logistics that "poker night" can't accommodate more than 8 people and "homemade pizza/sushi night"
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I see it more as Facebook rebuilding AOL from the bottom up. It is a walled garden that for increasing numbers of people IS the Internet
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Facebook is slowly turning into the WalMart equivalent for the internet.
I believe we already had something like that—it was called "AOL".
The Normals need a playground. A market like that just can't be ignored; after all, there are so many of them.
quit cold turkey sometime last week (Score:5, Interesting)
Meh, I only went to facebook regularly because I got addicted to some of the crappy clicky games (MafiaWars and Starfleet Commander). But at some point just this month, I finally stopped feeding the urge to maintain those things... it was eating a lot of quality time out of my personal time in mornings and evenings. I pretty much avoid MMORPGs for the same reason.
The signal-to-noise ratio of most of those social networking sites have plummeted, so I rarely pay much attention to them anymore. The feeds are dominated by a handful of people who post all the time. So queue up the next big thing... or actually maybe the older sites like LiveJournal with actual content, and not just grey connective tissue. Clicky clicky linky linky can still get old and tired.
Interesting... (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing that bothers me is how Hitwise gets its data...
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/online_sidebars_backgrounders [stateofthemedia.org]
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...
All analytics suck (Score:2)
Re:Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Which are more like to be google ads than facebook ads? :)
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No one finds it funny that this milestone of the rise of social networking is that facebook surpassed google. Did they not read the next line where before google MySpace was the top site?
Social Site - Search Engine - Social Site
People still visit google.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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And the answer page is on Google.com. They're talking about the whole TLD, not the home page.
Using the search bar is win-win with Google. They save on bandwidth/resources, and there's no ads on their home page anyway. And when it jumps you to Wikipedia, those are usually for instances where you're not shopping for something anyway.
Apples and oranges. (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:2)
I'd be interested in how this is measured tbh. It is the old, false, addage of 'hits'? The graph cites as 'visits', but I'm curious how that's actually measured.
Besides, even if FB had more visits, big deal.. a visit to search means you're likely trying to find out something.. not post that you're getting ready to make eggs for breakfest.. then post again that you realized you're out of eggs.. and another one asking if anyone needs anything from the store..
FB is popular for the same reasons MMOs remain popu
Google is aware of this (Score:2, Interesting)
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Actually, they want to be your portal to all of human knowledge; the internet is a means, not an ends.
I don't think that they view pulling people into Buzz or Wave as properties as a major strategic goal, they want to use Buzz and Wave properties as showcases for the unde
What do they do there? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it only me who knows that what people do on Facebook is more of gossip spreading than anything really useful?
So what? (Score:2)
I suspect most people visit BOTH sites. If I want to look up some technical information (or find new pr0n), I use google. If I want to find out if Brenda's son got his car fixed, I check on Facebook.
Sure... lots and lots of traffic (Score:2)
Sure there's a ton of traffic. People keep handing me free beers!
I'd hazard that at least 80% of that Google traffic is useful and productive. Facebook traffic, OTOH, tends to be viral marketing crap designed to drive up the traffic stats.
--
Toro
And Farmville (Score:2)
Shit methodology there, guys! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Shit methodology there, guys! (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly... Google forces all its international visitors by default into google.de, google.fr, google.es, etc.
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Google needs to catch up... (Score:2, Funny)
Quality vs quantity, traffic vs reach (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if google had half the traffic of facebook it still would trump it: google knows what you are looking for in that moment so it is able to target advertisement better. Facebook on the other hand generally only knows that you are tending to your pigs in farmville, at the moment.
Even if facebook had twice traffic, it still is an easy bet that google has more reach (as a greater % of internet users access it). Just think about age/professional profiles: you know everyone uses google. You know lots of people don't use and don't care for facebook.
Facebook knows more than that. (Score:4, Insightful)
The new AOL (Score:2)
This just in (Score:2)
People generally prefer talking bullshit and gawking at each other's pointless photos over finding and learning useful information on the Internet.
Either that or people stopped googling the website name they wanted, and learned either how to use the address bar or the bookmarks :)
In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
More people read the TV Guide than Yellow Pages.
Lotta traffic for one site (Score:2)
As an aside, it's stunning to think of the absolutely massive hardware that must sit behind Google and Facebook. I mean, 11% and 7% of ~total web traffic in the US~, respectively. That's a lot of bytes! Frankly I find it shocking/amazing that any single site can command such a massive slice of all traffic, given the size of the web and all. 11% for Google's stuff combined doesn't surprise me but 7% for FB certainly does. I mean, it's a popular site and I use it, but I doubt it makes up 7% of my browsing-rel
Loss for Privacy and the Open Internet (Score:2, Insightful)
Say what you will about Google, but its level of evil is dwarfed by Facebook's.
*You can use much of Google without logging in, even without cookies or Javascript. Try that with Facebook.
*Google gets criticized for privacy bugs in Buzz, but Facebook is entirely based on privacy violations
*Google pioneered reasonable Internet ads (text ads). Though they later added other kinds of ads, Google showed it's possible for websites to earn revenue without being totally obnoxious. Facebook ads are evil incarnate.
*Go
No S, Sherlock (Score:2)
obvious answer (Score:2)
Everyone already learned everything there is to know on the interwebs, no longer needing to search for it on google.com anymore. Now, they're logging in to facebook to share their knowledge with their friends!
Just about to IPO Facebook... concidence ? (Score:2)
This news came just when IPO is beeing talked inside FaceBook... perfect timing, isnt it ?
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This is feeding into the ongoing narrative about the "social web" being the future of the web. "Passively" using the web to research things on your own is out - it's all about building social networks to get status updates on family members you don't like talking to in real life and, I don't know, playing Farmville. Note that the CNN link is in the "CNN Money" area of their website - meaning that they're already viewing the narrative as "business vs. business." Google's business model is out, Facebook's
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