Facebook Surpasses Google for User Minutes- Is Facebook the New “News?”

Originating as a purely “social” platform through which college students could connect with one another, Facebook has evolved (at warp speed) into a digital Mecca of marketing and advertising potential.  In a report released by research company comScore last week, the time Americans spent on Facebook during the month of August (41.1 million minutes) surpassed the time (39.8 million minutes) we spent on Google Inc.’s various sites (i.e.- Google searching, gmail, and YouTube.)

Google built its incredible reputation and coveted search engine rankings to become the leader synonymous with valuable information on the internet .  Unlike Google, Facebook started as a “personal” information sharing network in which users soon developed a level of trust because they were interacting (initially) only with personal acquaintances.  Facebook’s rapid rise, cemented with the information presented in this report, carries a pretty clear message about what the country’s media consumers are deeming credible information sources now.

The comScore survey was conducted using a randomized sample of two million internet users across the country: indicating that this “trend” isn’t isolated to one demographic, but to American consumers as a whole.  Because digital data changes by the millisecond, it’s a slippery slope when it comes to extrapolating this data into what it means for consumers, advertisers, marketers, and search engines.  Based on the McCauley team’s experiences, we wonder if a Google/ Facebook partnership won’t soon be in the works.

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