Facebook Surpasses Google For Users' Online Time

crimeandpunishment writes "When it comes to our time online, socializing beats searching. According to new data from researchers at comScore Inc., Facebook has moved ahead of Google for the first time in Web users' minutes. In August, people spent more than 41 million minutes on Facebook, compared to just under 40 million for all of Google's sites combined. Yahoo came in third, with 37.7 million minutes."

Right, because Google is *instant* now.

[tha_mink]

Well, duh. Now that there's Google Instant, you don't *have* to spend any time on google.

Re:Right, because Google is *instant* now.

[jgagnon]

I'm waiting for "Google Telepathy". Requiring a computer to search Google is such a waste of time.

Re:Right, because Google is *instant* now.

[gmuslera]

Not waiting for it, telepathy works in both directions... and i would like that at least my dreams are free of Google Ads.

Re:

[jgagnon]

But you could get a tattoo on your forehead reading "This Space for Rent"... :p

Re:

[brainboyz]

*Imagining Uber Hot Chick*

*Interrupted by foggy window hovering right-of-center*
==Ads by Google==
+ _Prescription Drugs Cheap_
  Viagra and Cialis straight to your door
+ _Slutty Lingerie_
  Get something hot for her to wear tonight
+ _Toys, Toys, Toys_
  Vanilla not cutting it? Have more fun with toys

Yup, just how I want my dreams. Hot and practical.

Re:

[zmollusc]

LIGHTSPEED BRIEFS
For the discriminating crotch.
Just $30 for a pack of three

Re:

[mweather]

Lightspeed Briefs: For the discriminating crotch.

Re:

[jgagnon]

For that, there is Apple.com. :p

Re:

[veganboyjosh]

I could actually see this being sort of useful. Imagine something like the Amazon "other users who bought this book" feature being used on the web. Privacy and the "but what I search for at 2 am isn't what I want (my coworkers/family/boss) to see at 2 pm" issues aside, I would put a little trust in some Google app that showed me websites people are visiting that have similar browsing habits as me. Is there some music blog I don't know about? Likely. I'd love to know which other music blogs people who read t

Statistically significant

[magsol]

Is that tiny edge that Facebook has over Google outside the margin of error? I don't doubt that Facebook use is growing faster than Google use, but has it exceeded the "noisy" range and clearly bested Google, or is this just a random spike during which someone happened to be paying attention?

Re:Statistically significant

[mcgrew]

I don't use facebook, but I'd imagine that people who do spend more time there per visit than the five seconds it takes to google to somewhere. Plus, most people just use the search bar on their browser -- which is usually Google. Does that count as a visit?

Re:

[DanTheStone]

It's talking about Google's sites combined. I think most people (not I) spend longer than 5 seconds when they go to YouTube.

Re:

[NoTheory]

This is a non-trivial problem. How do they account for youtube embeds on facebook? Count towards just facebook? Just youtube? Both? What happens to views embedded on other sites? Google gathers data from each view after all, perhaps more, than just the youtube video's primary page.

Re:

[networkBoy]

FWIW (one person does not a sample set make):
I use facebook ~ 10 to 20 min/week. Usually only 1 visit a week.
I use iGoogle about half an hour a day or more:
* /. RSS feed
* Comics RSS feed
* Stock widget
* Quotes of the day
* Bash.org latest quotes (WTF, no updates for a while)
* Web Hosting status RSS
* Analytics RSS
* Google Docs periodically.

Re:

[brainboyz]

My question is, do youtube videos embedded in Facebook count towards, one, the other, or both?

Re:

[jgagnon]

The answer is, of course, yes.

Re:

[Evets]

I think the bigger question is: does anybody care? Judging from the Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc. posts, you'd think that 150 users would have pushed facebook over the edge two years ago.

Both are still plenty vulnerable (google less so, but still) to an upstart with marketing money and a decent business plan.

Regardless, people who spend all day on either site aren't the people that make them money. Well except for offshore ones who are getting paid a dollar an hour to click on ads.

Masturbation vs sex

[AliasMarlowe]

Both are still plenty vulnerable (google less so, but still) to an upstart with marketing money and a decent business plan.

Facebook (when I last looked at it, more than a year ago) struck me as being a sort of internet masturbation. As soon as something more fulfilling comes along, it will fall by the wayside. I bet the typical teenager spends a lot more time wanking than screwing, but eventually gets laid often enough to reverse the situation.
Google, on the other hand, provides a few useful services. It's not sex, but it's not jerking around either.

Re:Statistically significant

[Jurily]

I don't doubt that Facebook use is growing faster than Google use

Well, duh. I don't think Google use can grow any faster.

There is a fundamental difference between Google and Facebook: you don't use Google to use Google, you use it to get somewhere else. You use Facebook to be on Facebook. In fact, we love Google precisely because they don't waste our time.

Really?

[Thyamine]

Why did it take so long? I don't spend that much time on Facebook, but I know I spend more time than I do searching. I mean, how do you linger for any real length of time in Google? You search and look through the results. Sometimes you look through a few pages, maybe re-work the search a few times, but in the end most of the time spent is on that page you are searching for a link for. Unless this is counting gmail and things like that.

Re:

[hansamurai]

I haven't RTFA but maybe Google includes Gmail, Youtube, Blogspot, etc?

Re:

[tha_mink]

I haven't RTFA but maybe Google includes Gmail, Youtube, Blogspot, etc?

Yep.

Re:

[cynyr]

does it include embedded youtube videos?

Re:Really?

[jgagnon]

This is for all of Google's services, not just their search home page. I keep a browser window with Gmail open nearly all day, every day.

Re:

[Darkness404]

...And many people also keep a Facebook tab open all day, every day and my guess is more people keep a facebook tab open than a Gmail tab because more people check Facebook regularly than their e-mails, not to mention that my Gmail account is synced with my phone, iPod, etc. while Facebook chat isn't.

Re:

[IAmGarethAdams]

while Facebook chat isn't.

Really? Facebook chat is Jabber-based so I find it much easier to use it in Adium (Gaim) than through the shocking web interface

Re:

[IAmGarethAdams]

It's better to add it as a Jabber account than as a Facebook account - see http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php [facebook.com] for the connection details

Re:

[mooingyak]

From the article:

all of Google Inc.'s sites combined, including YouTube, the free Gmail e-mail program, Google news and other content sites

search itself might not be a time sink, but youtube and gmail probably are.

Re:Really?

[AnonymousClown]

I mean, how do you linger for any real length of time in Google?

I take it you've never googled "Christina Hendricks" and clicked on "Images"?

Re:

[jdgeorge]

Maybe it's just as well I don't have any mod points for you. I'm not sure whether this should be Funny, Insightful, or Informative, (since there's no Helpful).

Don't be ridiculous

[MRe_nl]

EVERYBODY's googled "Christina Hendricks" and clicked on "Images".

Re:

[tenco]

Wrong.

Re:

[Ironhandx]

I hadn't, but I have now. I was expecting NSFW to be honest. I was mildly disappointed but I did stop for a second to admire her large... dimples.

Re:

[jgagnon]

Ok, "Summer Glau" and "images" then?

Re:

[JeffSpudrinski]

Any bets on how long it will be before Google tries to purchase Facebook?

Just my $0.02.

-JJS

Re:Really?

[elashish14]

FTS: all of Google's sites combined.

When you consider that Google offers so many other things - calendar, email, etc. (which arguably, Facebook can also provide in its own way) besides search, I guess it means you spend more time on a Google site. I wonder if Youtube was also considered in Google's minutes, but I didn't RTA.

plus, who uses google to procrastinate? I'd think 90% of people would choose facebook over google if they had to go somewhere to procrastinate. That probably counts for the majority of facebook's time.

Facebook? Try Farmville.

[cusco]

I'd like to find the bastard who wrote Farmville and sue him for 'estrangement of affections'. It's quite incredible how much time my wife spends on the damn game.

Re:

[Zixaphir]

You now understand why women don't date gamers.

Re:

[hedwards]

I thought it was because a real gamer would never have time to hit on anybody.

forget lawsuits

[commodoresloat]

There's an easier way. Start playing Mafia Wars and just shoot the guy.

Re:

[DoofusOfDeath]

No, plow her fields.

No, wait, trim her hedges?

Stroke her pet beaver?

Wait... what were we discussing again?

Yahoo 3rd???

[A. B3ttik]

Who the #%&$ still uses yahoo?

Re:Yahoo 3rd???

[emurphy42]

Are you sure you want to know?

Re:

[Pojut]

Exactly what I was thinking. How is yahoo still even ranked in the top 10?

I mean, next thing you know, people will be saying Geocities is ranked- oh wait...

Re:

[Lunix Nutcase]

How is yahoo still even ranked in the top 10?

Because lots of people still use their email services.

Re:

[jgagnon]

This... as well as their yellow pages service, to name two.

Re:

[DragonWriter]

Exactly what I was thinking. How is yahoo still even ranked in the top 10?

SBC partnered with Yahoo! as the default portal for SBC ISP customers (at least residential) back before they bought AT&T and adopted AT&T's name for themselves; if I'm not mistaken, the install procedure for the software that comes with the combined DSL modem/wireless router you get with AT&T internet service also sets your homepage to the "ATT.NET" portal, which is not at http://att.net/ [att.net] as its name my suggest, but inste

Re:Yahoo 3rd???

[Cochonou]

Maybe you have heard about this site called flickr [flickr.com] ?

Re:Yahoo 3rd???

[Mongoose Disciple]

Who the #%&$ still uses yahoo?

For search, probably not a lot of people.

On the other hand, one of my fantasy football leagues is on Yahoo, and Yahoo Answers is pretty solid.

Re:

[mqduck]

You forgot Yahoo! games. I don't know about you, but I play card games with friends there all the time.

Re:

[Mongoose Disciple]

Well, sometimes you actually can get a good answer out of Yahoo Answers, and most of the rest of the time, yeah, it's comedy gold.

Either way, you can't lose!

Re:

[Lehk228]

How is babby formed?

Re:

[mcgrew]

I use their webmail since Google accused me of... well, they didn't say, just "acceptable use policy". Which was wierd, since all I used it for was email to friends, slashdot, and newspaper sites that force you to register, and not many of them at that. No attachments, no CCs, no chain letters, nothing.

So if you try to reach me at [e-mail], you're out of luck.

I still use Google search, though. But I won't use their webmail again, that's for sure.

Re:

[istartedi]

I do. My e-mail has been there forever. Their financial charts were, until recently, clean and uncluttered. They've started forcing "revamped" basic charts on us; but even for a "web 2.0 compliant" chart, they still managed to do it without too many bells and whistles. As another pointed out, this may include their acquisition of Flickr which I have been using for several years now.

Their search and directory were tired a long time ago. Their subscription music was a failure; but they're diverse enough

Re:

[jdgeorge]

You're not getting the picture [statcounter.com]. Next to nobody uses Yahoo or Bing. The rest compete for title of "I thought they went out of business".

Re:

[jdgeorge]

You're not getting the picture [statcounter.com]. Next to nobody uses Yahoo or Bing. The rest compete for title of "I thought they went out of business".

Oh, and to the point: Idiots like me who do fantasy sports use Yahoo. I think your question really is aimed at search, not at other internet time wasting, which Yahoo is pretty good at (and popular for).

Shame on me for having to amend my own dumb post. Ah, well.

Re:

[DerekLyons]

Who the #%&$ still uses yahoo?

Well, there's Flickr for one. (I just spent about half an hour there moderating several groups, commenting on new photographs, replying to message threads, etc... etc...) Then there's Yahoo!'s Finance page, where I spend an hour or so each month monitoring my portfolio's. Then there's my Yahoo! mail account that I still use for a few things, so that consumes a couple of hours a month...

And that's only a fraction of the services Yahoo! offers and only a portion of

Re:

[Vitriol+Angst]

Oh sorry, I forgot to shut down that Multi-terminal Mosaic Screensaver on the California University System's VAX machine.

[CLICK]

Yahoo shares plummet!

Re:

[kiwimate]

Seconded. If you read through my comment history, you'll see I've said in the past why I prefer Yahoo e-mail to GMail. My homepage is my customized "My Yahoo". I've been using Yahoo for longer than Google's been in existence, and I like it.

Plus, as other people have said, Google collects a lot of information. I'm not going to ascribe nefarious purposes...but I am going to use different e-mail, search, and mapping software. (Mainly because I happen to like those different e-mail and search apps better than G

No surprise

[al0ha]

No surprise based on yesterday's story regarding the majority of users on Facebook.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/09/08/1621235/Narcissists-Insecure-People-Flock-To-Facebook [slashdot.org]

Post a bunch of stupid sh*t about myself, then read it over and over again...

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

Post a bunch of stupid sh*t about myself, then read it over and over again...

That would be blogging. Facebook is people posting stupid sh*t about themselves and hoping other people care enough to acknowledge their existence.

Re:

[commodoresloat]

I thought that was slashdot?

Is that an achievement for Google or Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google prides itself on wasting less of our time, while Facebook prides itself on wasting more of it.

I wanna see how many ads per minute each service gets from their users, and how much resources a minute is worth on both of them.

Then this milestone might even mean something. By itself, it doesn't.

Re:

[Mongoose Disciple]

Google prides itself on wasting less of our time, while Facebook prides itself on wasting more of it.

Google Search, sure. But Gmail or YouTube?

Re:

[countSudoku()]

Subscribe me to your newsletter post haste!

I was thinking the same thing; I'm in two gmail accounts all day long and spend perhaps 5 minutes on farcebook each day, I spend more time on /. than at FB too. Perhaps these number reflect the millions of stupid people willing to not only reread their own inane postings but the droppings, er, postings of their alleged "friends"? It takes all of a minute to weed through the "oh, look at my sandwich!" and "my kid crapped a HUGE load in their diaper!" stuff and get

Re:

[hedwards]

To be fair, they do try and waste as little of your time as possible getting to the distractions.

Yahoo?

[swanzilla]

I am completely surprised by Yahoo's stats. Either user-minutes is a garbage metric, or I am using the internets incorrectly.

Re:

[Speare]

I am completely surprised by Yahoo's stats. Either user-minutes is a garbage metric, or I am using the internets incorrectly.

Most of those minutes are the user getting up, finding son-in-law, asking him unclear questions about whether their computer has an Internet or not, and a demonstration by said youngster how you don't have to type "www.google.com" into the Yahoo homepage search field.

Re:Yahoo?

[ElectricTurtle]

The kind of people who still use Yahoo do things really slowly... they're the kind of people who always get in front of you when you're late and drive ten miles per hour slower than the speed limit. So, yes, in a way 'user minutes' is a garbage metric because if a site attracts fast users that will make it seem less popular/useful (or whatever qualitative conclusion one is supposed to correlate to the metric) even it isn't, and vice versa a site that attracts slower users will seem more popular/useful when that isn't the case.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Re:

[powermung]

My start page is my.yahoo.com. I still use their e-mail service as my primary e-mail, and their finance content is second to none. For other contents, I have RSS feeds on the start page which allows me to satisfy majority of my information browsing needs without ever leaving the page. I have tried iGoogle and Google finance in the past and wasn't impressed. Facebook? I guess I'm no longer a teenager without tons of free time. Besides, I didn't realize there was an "incorrect" way to use Internet.

Re:

[city]

It looks at all their services, and I have used many of them in the past, and some as recent as last year: mail, flickr, del.icio.us, yahoo sports (fantasy football), answers, and geocities. But I can't say I do anymore, maybe I've viewed a few photos on flickr or reviewed a yahoo answer...

att = yahoo

[formfeed]

If you got at&t, your primary email and many of your account related pages are through yahoo.

face what?

[spidercoz]

what book?
what what?

"slacking off" would be the correct term

[Silas is back]

Replace "socializing" with "slacking off" in that very first sentence and everybody will go "like I didn't know".

So what?

[LordArgon]

Considering Google just released Google Instant, a feature that reduces overall query time (and also just happens to increases overall ad impressions), I don't think "online time" is a particularly meaningful metric for relevance.

Not really Socializing

[InsaneSpider]

Its not really socializing if they are spending hours playing farmville or mafia wars. I think thats where most of the time goes. Although I will admit that I leave my facebook profile open when I leave for work, so I wonder if they count inactive uses or not.

Not mine

[Jorl17]

I don't waste my time with social networks. So I don't follow the trends, it seems...

What does it include?

[geminidomino]

Does that include all the time that facebook users are browsing non-Facebook "facebook-enabled" sites?

Interestingly enough, it would appear that something happened to change my facebook's settings to "keep me logged in" without me telling it to.

I will post my reply to this in 1 sec

[WillAffleckUW]

I just have to click on some more cows first.

Just be a few more minutes.

If you can just wait.

Re:

[blair1q]

And that's the thing.

Are those users "on Facebook" or "on Zynga" when they're doing that?

Re:

[blair1q]

So Facebook, which clearly isn't the new Google, may be the new AOL: the portal through which many people see the Internet.

I'd say the superfluous portal, but, unlike AOL, Facebook actually has a unique product in its Wall and the way that is keyed to a person's IRL past. AOL didn't put the social into it, while Classmates.Com didn't make it sociable, and frankly I think most people didn't want anyone in their past to know about their MySpace accounts...

"Socializing"?

[Arancaytar]

If by "Socializing" you mean "investing time into building up a virtual farm/mafia/village/whatever". :P

I don't get the comparison

[edmicman]

I don't get it - why *should* searching occupy more time than socializing? I don't really understand the Google-Facebook comparison in general. Google Search, their bread and butter, is a tool. It's job is to as fast as possible get me on my way to some destination. Facebook on the other hand *is* the destination. It's a source of content, so naturally I'm going to spend time there. In what scenario would I ever spend an equivalent amount of time searching, or using some other tool? I don't spend time holding a hammer just for the sake of hammering. I use it to build something and then use what I built.

Honestly, the closest Google sites I can think of that are comparable to Facebook would be Reader and Youtube. But I don't typically browse Youtube...I go there from a link, or go there to directly search for something. My time in Reader is spent reading through content...but it's the content I'm using, the tool is just a means to an end. But on Facebook I tend to browse, jump from profile to profile, read through the day's events, etc.

In what world is the purpose of Google the same as the purpose of Facebook?

Apples and Oranges

[billsayswow]

This is like saying that people at the mall spend more time at the Barnes & Noble than in front of the "You Are Here" maps.

Big surprise.

[Chas]

Google is about finding and organizing shit you want.
Facebook is about the narcissistic pursuit of yourself.

The 60's was the "me" generation.
The 70's was the "me me" generation.
The 80's was the "me me me" generation.
The 90's was the "me me me me" generation.
The first decade of the 21st century is turning out to be the "it's all about me me me me me me me (keep repeating until you run out of breath) generation.

So there's being into yourself, and then there's those sick fucks on Facebook.

=)

Google WANTS users to have LESS online time

[AlgorithMan]

more online-time on a search engine means that it takes you longer to find what you were looking for in the results. which means that the search-engine has worse result.

why do you think they have instant-seach soon?

Hmm...

[Locke2005]

Facebook is blocked entirely on our corporate firewall. I wonder how much of a productivity gain we get from that. Little do the admins know that they should be blocking slashdot as well!

Re:Differences.

[XanC]

Are these the people who Google for "facebook login" and then proceed to assume that whatever they find is Facebook? The comments here are pure gold [readwriteweb.com].

Re:

[tha_mink]

Are these the people who Google for "facebook login" and then proceed to assume that whatever they find is Facebook? The comments here are pure gold [readwriteweb.com].

Comedy gold indeed. I can't believe how stupid people are. I mean, I know there's a whole bunch of stupid people, but I'm constantly reminded that they're probably the majority.

Re:

[jgagnon]

Look around... if you don't see the stupid person in the room, it's you.

Re:

[networkBoy]

I just looked.
Please tell me that is a troll hoax, are people *that* dumb? Seriously?

Re:

[hedwards]

That's the greatest post I've seen in a while, please tell me that it was an elaborate hoax or that they're all going to be fixed before having offspring.

best thing about those comments

[commodoresloat]

is that the overwhelming majority of comments are from people with facebook icons. That's right -- they're already fucking logged in to facebook.

Re:

[XanC]

The thing is that the comments on that site offer Facebook Connect, so you can log in with your Facebook login in order to comment.

In these people's defense (well, somewhat) they did click on something with a Facebook logo.

Re:

[prichardson]

Oh. Oh dear.

These people must be ostracized and made to feel their fabulous stupidity. If I ever encountered one of these people in real life, I would have to call them an idiot. The best part is that they associated this information with their facebook profiles.

I bet all of them have weak passwords, too.

Re:

[jgagnon]

Humanity is aging at a rapid pace...

Re:

[DragonWriter]

If facebook has 400 million users, and they spent a total of 40 million minutes in a month, that's only 0.1 minute per month for each user. I don't think you can do much more than log in once in 6 seconds. I read the article, and these numbers all appear to be bogus.

I'm notionally a Facebook user, and I haven't logged on to the site proper in months. I occasionally check some stuff on it through the native iPhone app (though even that only rarely), and use my Facebook logon for Bejeweled Blitz (which, incid

Re:

[LBArrettAnderson]

I was thinking the same thing. It must be on average per day, or billion, like you said.

Re:

[HarvardAce]

It's an estimate, first off, and it's only tracking users from the US.

Re:

[networkBoy]

Yahoo groups runs freecycle, Yahoo owns Flikr.
That's likely where lots of the user time comes from.