E-commerce News

It was only a matter of time…

Facebook has replaced Yahoo as the United States’ second largest web site and has narrowed the gap on No. 1 Google, according to a report on January traffic from Web analytics firm Compete. Facebook drew nearly 134 million unique visitors last month, compared to Yahoo’s 132 million. Google, which has been in the top spot since overtaking Yahoo back in February of 2009, registered a monthly audience of about 148 million.

Compete compiled its data through a panel of 2 million U.S. internet users representing a cross section of the population.  The report does conflict somewhat with similar information from ComScore, which doesn’t put Facebook’s audience quite as large.  ComScore, which we’ve referenced a number of times here at Junkie for various tech and internet trends, estimates that Facebook doubled its audience to 112 million in 2009, putting it squarely in fourth place behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.

Unlike Compete, however, half of ComScore’s 2 million member panel used for its data gathering resides outside the United States.

Nevertheless, there are some common themes emerging from both firms’ reports, primarily that user engagement on Facebook has skyrocketed recently.  Compete’s data found that 11.6 percent of all time spent online in January was on Facebook (compared to 4.25 percent for Yahoo and 4.1 percent for Google).  That’s a sizeable chunk of time, and it echoes ComScore’s reporting last month that Facebook’s average monthly minutes per visitor (a key engagement metric) increased 45 percent from 170 to 247.

Yet another report on Tuesday from the Nielsen Co. revealed an even higher estimate for time spent on the social networking giant, reporting users spent an average of just over 7 hours on Facebook in January (up 10 percent from December.)  Google and Yahoo both averaged only 2 hours in Nielsen’s data.

Whichever round of data and information you choose to take as fact, the overall picture is pretty obvious.   Facebook, which recently announced it has hit 400 million global users and 100 million mobile users, has now eclipsed one web giant and may very well be poised to take down another in the near future.  If you’re an online advertiser, all of these stats prove that Facebook’s audience is improving in both quantity and quality. As such, it is an online advertising option that simply cannot be ignored.

For retailers, this lends even further credence to our long-held assertion that you must integrate social media into your operations from here on out.  After all, how can you ignore the potential of 400 million people?  Adding a Facebook tool like the Merchant store application from Sortprice.com is a great way to begin asserting your company and brand on this huge group of people. One way or the other, if you don’t take advantage, your competitors probably will.

Leave us your thoughts and ideas in the comment section below. We’re particularly interested in what you think makes Facebook so popular and such a fast riser in these kinds of rankings.