Users Spending More Time On Facebook Than Google: REPORT

SEATTLE — U.S. Web surfers are spending more time socializing on Facebook than searching with Google, according to new data from researchers at comScore Inc.

In August, people spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook, comScore said Thursday, about 9.9 percent of their Web-surfing minutes for the month. That just barely surpassed the 39.8 million minutes, or 9.6 percent, people spent on all of Google Inc.'s sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail e-mail program, Google news and other content sites.

U.S. Web users spent 37.7 million minutes on Yahoo Inc. sites, or 9.1 percent of their time, putting Yahoo third in terms of time spent browsing. In July, Facebook crept past Yahoo for the first time, according to comScore.

In August of last year, Web surfers spent less than 5 percent of their online time on Facebook, about the same percentage of their time on Google and almost 12 percent on Yahoo. In August 2007, Facebook captured less than 2 percent of U.S. surfers' total minutes. Google accounted for less than 4 percent, and Yahoo for just over 12 percent.

To be sure, there's wiggle room in these estimates, which comScore bases on a combination of reports from a panel of two million users around the world and data from websites' servers. But the time spent posting photos, updating status messages and scrolling through news from friends has at least grown to rival just about everything else people do online.

Comments

[Charlie Seymour Jr]

11:36 AM on 09/13/2010

It would surprise me if people spend more time on Google than Facebook, the way things are going these days.

Facebook is a social medium which and people are interacting. Google is just a search engine where people spend time (alone) searching.

There probably aren't too many people who open Google and leave it open while they do other work, as they do with Facebook... so I'm not really sure now accurate or meaningful the numbers are.

Charlie Seymour Jr
http://PersonalSuccessMarketing.com

[hagagaga]

10:48 PM on 09/12/2010

And how much of the rest is porn?

[RobParker]

11:07 PM on 09/11/2010

how long until google starts a social networking site? or have they already bought one?

[ChiProgressive]

05:30 PM on 09/11/2010

I wonder who is making more profit and is actually doing something useful for society.

[only livin boy in NY]

08:23 PM on 09/10/2010

how many are over 12?

[JeffMoskovitz]

04:44 PM on 09/10/2010

This was inevitable. An analogy from several years ago: Facebook is the Barnes and Noble which added cafes, music areas, and comfortable lounge-type reading rooms, while Google is the corner book store - get what you're looking for, perhaps even browse a it, and get out. Facebook is about interaction and engagement. Google is still about information. Google's answer? Google Buzz. Hardly compelling.

[chariotdrvr14]

02:50 PM on 09/10/2010

Yesterday in one of the articles about Google's announced enhanced search features they noted that shares have been down 26% recently.
I'm guessing there may be some anger over Google's other plans.
The more they tweak it the more they show they're panicking.

[Cody Wetzel]

02:39 PM on 09/10/2010

Didn't we already know this?

[MaxProgressive]

01:21 PM on 09/10/2010

Some indirect information from the article using quick math: In August 2010, U.S. Web surfers spent a total of 7.61 million hours surfing.

[allidoiswin]

01:08 PM on 09/10/2010

I never spend a lot of time on Facebook. I check in and see if anyone sent me any messages or wall and sign back off.

[mikeyaz17]

12:35 PM on 09/10/2010

im on facebook.. but rarely if ever used it... it just chat on steroids... and before that it was BBS... and besides i really dont give a rat's patootey if one of my friends just baked muffins..

come on people.. we have a real revolution to tend to

[tophers402]

09:09 AM on 09/10/2010

Damn you Farmville.

[coveark]

09:04 AM on 09/10/2010

I personally prefer Google and other search engines that help me do so many things that are important to me..........ask questions, spell, research, etc...........I really have no interest in virtual farms,,,,,,,yada da da........sorry, I guess that networking etc is the THING in this time period and for this generation, which is fine........but I care nothing about it.