Social Networking is King: Facebook Edges Google
Posted by Josh Tomaka
Just last month, Facebook passed Google to become the most popular destination on the Web according to the Web metrics firm Hitwise. The same week this was reported, Hitwise found that Facebook accounted for 7.07 % of all U.S. Internet visits, barely passing Google at 7.03%. The site now counts more than 400 million users and has had a 185% increase in traffic count from last year. It is important to note that Hitwise's figures are only for Facebook.com and Google.com, not including Google's other properties like YouTube and Gmail.
Google has been making moves toward the social space, including the integration of UGC like Twitter posts found in their search results and the recent launch of Buzz, a social network built out of Gmail. These moves make it clear that Google feels threatened by Facebook and it will be interesting to see how marketers change their strategy to reach their target audiences based on this fact.
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