Posts tagged as:

Hitwise

Facebook Wants To Be Your Browser’s Homepage

November 23, 2010

The world’s most popular social networking site is busy getting ready for a new mischief.

Facebook is said to have started rolling out a new tool that allows users to make Facebook as their browser homepage.

The new tool shows a bar of notification at the top of the page asking users if they want to make Facebook as their browser home page.

According to a report on Vatornews, Facebook is experimenting this homepage suggestion with different types of messages in the notification to, and most likely roll out the new homepage tool with the messages that sees the highest success rate.

This move will definitely increase the rate of visits for Facebook, but the momentum of Facebook’s growth is still there even without this particular move.

With more than 500 million users and still growing, along with reports showing that Facebook as the destination of 1 out of 10 U.S. Internet users according to the latest report from Hitwise or ComScore’s report that shows Facebook as leading the site as an internet publishing site, this move to have users to make Facebook as the homepage seems pretty pointless. Still, there may be many other long-term plans beneath the little suggestion which may or may not be a little mischief against search engine giant Google.

Still, the homepage thing is still in testing mode. And once rolled out, the only thing to be seen is how well the mass receive it.

What is your say on this latest tool Facebook is experimenting? Will you adopt Facebook as your homepage?

{ 1 comment }

Google Beaten: Facebook Become The Most Popular Site In US

March 17, 2010

For the first time, Facebook overtook Google as the most visited website in the United States last week, according to the Web analytics firm Hitwise.

Heather Dougherty, Hitwise’s director of research, said that Facebook had ‘reached an important milestone” with the weekly figures.

According to the firm’s weekly figures on March 13, the two sites accounted for 14% of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07% of traffic and Google’s 7.03%.

Though the lead is slim, it is really an important milestone for Facebook who’s popularity has seen an enormous growth over past year – from just 2% visits a year ago to 7.07%.

The number of Facebook’s users have also increased dramatically from 200 Million last April to 400 Million in February.

One reason for the ever increasing popularity of Facebook can be attributed to Facebook’s games. Zynga’s FarmVille game alone boasts more than 83 Million monthly users.

Social networking sites have fallen in the past and Google had been leading since September 2007, when it overtook News Corp’s MySpace.com. However, the tremendous growth enjoyed by Facebook over the past year have led to an increase in popularity of social networking.

According to Nielsen Company research firm, internet users around the world spent more than five and half hours a month on social networking sites on an average. US leads country wise with an average of six and half hours on Facebook.

{ 1 comment }