Facebook pips Google to the to top popular web site spot in UK

27 Dec 2010

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Facebook beat Google for the first time on Christmas Day in the UK to top the popularity charts among web sites. The site registered 10.50 per cent of all UK internet visits with Google trailing at 9.77 per cent share.
 
Facebook became America's most visited site beating Google in March this year with 7.97 per cent of all internet traffic while Google was just behind with 7.03 per cent.
Facebook, which now boasts more than 400 million users worldwide, was launched by a group of students at Harvard University, including multi-millionaire Mark Zuckerberg, just four years ago.

The site took the Number 1 spot on Christmas Day as users rushed to their computers to communicate online with friends and family.

However, analysts say the social network is unlikely to maintain its position.

They say Facebook has a very similar share of the social networking markets in both the UK and US (51.9 per cent and 51.3 per cent respectively last week), but social networking is slightly more popular in the US, so Facebook's share of all internet visits is higher there.

They add that Google has a larger share of search market in the UK (over 90 per cent) than in the US (just over 70 per cent), and search engines as a category are also more popular in UK and Europe.

Analysts say social media is gaining increasing importance rapidly and even those politicians and commentators who think the fad can be safely ignored need to understand that driven by mass communication, the long-established rules of media engagement are changing fast on an unprecedented scale. They add that this year has proved that those who are not ready for it will get hurt.

They add that from Julian Assange to Mark Zuckerberg the new stars on the horizon are people who are well versed with the power of data in all forms, from classified State Department communications to banal information on the consumer preferences of hundreds of millions of individuals.
They say, in the years ahead, one can expect to see major changes to national and international law, as issues of accountability, freedom of speech and data privacy gain increasing importance.

They point out though, that social networks do lend themselves to a certain degree of digital narcissism, where irrespective of what the original story is, it always ends up viewed through the prism of social networks. However, though the truth of this can hardly be denied, it does not invalidate the point that traditional intermediaries and gatekeepers are being supplanted by a new media type which is more immediate and more democratic, less responsible and less reflective.

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