According to new data from Hitwise, Facebook managed to beat Google in terms of visits between March 7th and March 13th, becoming the most visited website in the U.S. for the week. And it doesn’t look like Facebook is going to relinquish its lead anytime soon.
Heather Dougherty, Research Director at Hitwise, explained, “The market share of visits to Facebook increased 185% last week as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google increased 9% during the same time frame.”
Dougherty also stated: “Together Facebook.com and Google.com accounted for 14% of all US Internet visits last week.”
This development represents a major win for Facebook. The ability to represent the social network as the number one site should count for a lot as corporate representatives talk to advertisers and investors, and could result in a direct boost in revenue. A further snowball effect in terms of user interest might occur, too, since most people like to be part of something that’s popular.
To read the entire article, found on WebProNews, click here.
Facebook is celebrating its recent 6th birthday by rolling out a dramatic redesign of its homepage. This new layout places a new emphasis on search and allows Facebook users to sort through much more information without ever leaving the homepage.
What additional changes have taken place?
- The search bar is now much larger and more prominently placed.
- Many of the items (like groups and events) that were kept in the Applications Menu have been moved back to the left sidebar on the homepage and rather than taking users to a new page, these now open within the main window where the news feed usually appears.
- Instant messaging and e-mail-like message inbox have been moved out of the periphery. Not only can users check their inbox from a dropdown menu at the top, they can send messages from there as well.
- A user’s IM contact list is no longer hidden in a popup menu in the bottom right hand corner of the site; is it now in the left sidebar.
Facebook is currently in the process of rolling these new features. The entire Facebook Community should have access to the new homepage shortly.
