DreamGrow Social Media

Facebook More Visited Than Google

Everything social is what people want to do most. Currently the top site is still Google but it will pass. People love to talk more than search. If we look at the top sites in US for 2009 then we see that four of them are used for communicating with others (Yahoo Mail, Facebook, MySpace and Live Mail). I believe that this social chatter is fundamental human need and won’t go away any time soon.

As we pointed out in our 22 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010, people will use more social networks’ messaging instead of regular email and IM. This will boost the visits to the social sites and decrease the usage of web mail. This all leads to Facebook becoming the most visited site in the world some time in 2010.

Experian Hitwise US tweeted that:

Facebook was the most visited site in the US on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 1st time the site has been the #1 visited US site ever. — Hitwise_US

Search Engine Land has a Hitwise graph for the data running up to the Christmas.

Experian Hitwise UK shared their data:

Facebook was the #1 US website this Xmas. Not quite there in the UK yet – maybe next year… — Hitwise_UK

I think there are two factors holding back total domination of Facebook. Lack of news and god-awful search. If Facebook would integrate Bing search to its platform then Google would have a lot to worry about.

Market Share of Social Networking Sites 2009

I have had a lot of people asking me about market shares of different social networking sites. So I went out and searched for most resent data I could find. While there’s really not much information freely available I compiled this list of sources that are all dated some time this year.

Top 10 Social Networking Websites & Forums October 2009, the Hitwise data is based on US market share of visits.

A Map Of Social (Network) Dominance. Really cool interactive map application with data from June 2009. Which social network is the most popular in each country?

Facebook statistics by country. Gender, age groups, percentage of online population. Very useful site. Updates frequently with current data from November 3, 2009.

Whee! New numbers on social network usage. Compete.com data from January 2009 showing uniques visitors and monthly visits of 25 top social networks.

Global Faces and Networked Places (PDF). A Nielsen report on Social Networking’s New Global Footprint. March 2009. Putting the growth of social networks, popularity and engagement into context.

How the Old, the Young and Everyone in Between Uses Social Networks. What are the reasons different generations are in social media and which social networks they use. US data from May 2009.

Facebook Growth Increases in Latin America, Argentina Now Largest Country in Region. Brazil growing at a rate of 33 percent per month. Data from November 1, 2009.

Facebook Is Now the Fourth Largest Site In The World. ComScore data of worldwide audience from June 2009.

Top Twenty Five Social Networking Sites, May 2009. Number of unique visitors with yoy change the data is actually only for top 20 sites. Top 10 of display ad impressions and projected ad income of Facebook, MySpace and other destinations in social media.

Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace. Facebook and MySpace are 17 and 13 respectively among social networking sites in China. Data from around April 2009.

China social networking sites statistics 2009 (updated).

If you know of any good resources with up to date data then please share in the comments.

• Related article Social media statistics and data for the weekend

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Image credit: spekulator