Facebook beats Google to become top US site

Link to the article: Channel 4 News

In a landmark victory for social networking Facebook overtakes internet giant Google last week to become the most visited website in the US.

Figures by Hitwise released show that last week Facebook received 7.07 per cent of all internet traffic, edging just ahead of the web's most powerful internet search engine on 7.03 per cent.

It is the first time Facebook has held onto such a lead for an entire week.

Hitwise director of research Heather Dougherty, hailed an "important milestone."

Facebook enjoyed a massive 185 percent increase in visits in the same period, compared to the same week in 2009.

Visits to search engine home Google.com increased only nine percent in the same time, although those figures don't include visits to Google property sites such as the popular Gmail email service, YouTube and Google Maps.

Facebook's membership worldwide has doubled in the last year to 400 million users, 133 million in America.

Joe Rospars, who was personal advisor to Barak Obama on digital media during his election campaign, told Channel 4 News he believed there was a change in internet utilisation.

"For a long time we've had a trend of people seeking out searched information on the internet and what we are seeing with the emergence of Facebook and sites like Twitter…is that people are looking for socialised information and news and topics in the culture and society but also information about their friends that are socialised and curated by their friends and neighbours and communities," he said.

Virus threat to social networking sites

Link to the article: Channel 4 News

By Benjamin Cohen

Internet users have known about the danger of viruses for years - but now they are a major issue for social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, writes Benjamin Cohen.

We've been warned about the dangers of viruses and malware (essentially dodgy software) being distributed by email and the web for years.

But it's only now becoming a major issue for those of us using social networks like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

Social networking costs companies

Link to the article: Reuters

Oct 30 - Access to social networking sites at work is costing UK businesses billions of pounds in lost productivity

Suranjana Tewari reports.