Facebook Surpasses Google For Users' Online Time

crimeandpunishment writes "When it comes to our time online, socializing beats searching. According to new data from researchers at comScore Inc., Facebook has moved ahead of Google for the first time in Web users' minutes. In August, people spent more than 41 million minutes on Facebook, compared to just under 40 million for all of Google's sites combined. Yahoo came in third, with 37.7 million minutes."

Statistically significant

[magsol]

Is that tiny edge that Facebook has over Google outside the margin of error? I don't doubt that Facebook use is growing faster than Google use, but has it exceeded the "noisy" range and clearly bested Google, or is this just a random spike during which someone happened to be paying attention?

Really?

[Thyamine]

Why did it take so long? I don't spend that much time on Facebook, but I know I spend more time than I do searching. I mean, how do you linger for any real length of time in Google? You search and look through the results. Sometimes you look through a few pages, maybe re-work the search a few times, but in the end most of the time spent is on that page you are searching for a link for. Unless this is counting gmail and things like that.

So what?

[LordArgon]

Considering Google just released Google Instant, a feature that reduces overall query time (and also just happens to increases overall ad impressions), I don't think "online time" is a particularly meaningful metric for relevance.

Not really Socializing

[InsaneSpider]

Its not really socializing if they are spending hours playing farmville or mafia wars. I think thats where most of the time goes. Although I will admit that I leave my facebook profile open when I leave for work, so I wonder if they count inactive uses or not.

Re:Yahoo?

[ElectricTurtle]

The kind of people who still use Yahoo do things really slowly... they're the kind of people who always get in front of you when you're late and drive ten miles per hour slower than the speed limit. So, yes, in a way 'user minutes' is a garbage metric because if a site attracts fast users that will make it seem less popular/useful (or whatever qualitative conclusion one is supposed to correlate to the metric) even it isn't, and vice versa a site that attracts slower users will seem more popular/useful when that isn't the case.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Re:Yahoo?

[powermung]

My start page is my.yahoo.com. I still use their e-mail service as my primary e-mail, and their finance content is second to none. For other contents, I have RSS feeds on the start page which allows me to satisfy majority of my information browsing needs without ever leaving the page. I have tried iGoogle and Google finance in the past and wasn't impressed. Facebook? I guess I'm no longer a teenager without tons of free time. Besides, I didn't realize there was an "incorrect" way to use Internet.

"Socializing"?

[Arancaytar]

If by "Socializing" you mean "investing time into building up a virtual farm/mafia/village/whatever". :P

I don't get the comparison

[edmicman]

I don't get it - why *should* searching occupy more time than socializing? I don't really understand the Google-Facebook comparison in general. Google Search, their bread and butter, is a tool. It's job is to as fast as possible get me on my way to some destination. Facebook on the other hand *is* the destination. It's a source of content, so naturally I'm going to spend time there. In what scenario would I ever spend an equivalent amount of time searching, or using some other tool? I don't spend time holding a hammer just for the sake of hammering. I use it to build something and then use what I built.

Honestly, the closest Google sites I can think of that are comparable to Facebook would be Reader and Youtube. But I don't typically browse Youtube...I go there from a link, or go there to directly search for something. My time in Reader is spent reading through content...but it's the content I'm using, the tool is just a means to an end. But on Facebook I tend to browse, jump from profile to profile, read through the day's events, etc.

In what world is the purpose of Google the same as the purpose of Facebook?

Google WANTS users to have LESS online time

[AlgorithMan]

more online-time on a search engine means that it takes you longer to find what you were looking for in the results. which means that the search-engine has worse result.

why do you think they have instant-seach soon?