Stunning New Media News: Facebook Bigger than Google

by Michael van der Galien
Posted on March 17 2010 3:56 pm

Michael van der Galien was born in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden in 1984. For as long as he can remember, he has been obsessed with the United States. When he was 17 years old, he started blogging - of course about America. His articles have been published at Big Hollywood, Pajamas Media, Hot Air (the GreenRoom) and Right Across The Atlantic. He's also an editor for the Dutch conservative blog, De Dagelijkse Standaard.

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This is absolutely stunning news:

Facebook reached an important milestone for the week ending March 13, 2010 and surpassed Google in the US to become the most visited website for the week. Facebook.com recently reached the #1 ranking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day as well as the weekend of March 6th and 7th. The market share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9% during the same time frame. Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits last week.

The above in a graph:

I’m quite an avid user of Facebook myself (see here for my profile page and here for my Michael van der Galien group page*). It is, as far as I’m concerned, the best social networking website out there by far. Sure, I use Twitter as well, but Facebook is more my thing. The reasons: you can leave longer messages, it’s more orderly than Twitter and, last but not least, you can post links to articles with a picture. And no, I’m not afraid to admit that I love images.

As such, I can’t say I’m surprised that Facebook is becoming increasingly popular. What is surprising, however, is that it’s not just beating every other social networking website out there, but even Google.

I mean, let’s be honest, Google is pretty much the God of the Internet. Everything starts and end with Google. It’s the center of the online universe. Telling me that it’s no longer America’s number one website is akin to saying we’ve discovered that earth isn’t revolving around the sun after all. Pretty shocking indeed.

What this tells me is that the way we’re using the Internet continues to evolve. Bloggers (and other media people) are wise to take this development very seriously and to do their advantage with it.

*Be sure to add me as a friend and to join my group.