Team Creatives

March 26, 2010 - 2010: Facebook, the New Ultimate Source of Online News?

News page of each search engines is one of the most visited section by internet users. It is the most dominant funnel to news and information sites. This is why most search engine are creating and continuously developing their own news pages. Google News is arguably the best source, most visited news site among search engines. But there is a threat that is waiting for them ahead. Well, not just Google but almost all search engines. That is Facebook.


In just a short span of time, Facebook has largely dominated the internet. They are now the most visited website, kicking out Google from its position. It is not all because of the socialization, relaxation or pastime that it gives to its users. There are a lot of ways that Facebook is useful for internet people. For website owners and e-commerce, the social networking site is a powerful traffic source. More and more website owners and search engine optimization specialists realize how powerful Facebook can be when it comes to the job of attracting more visitor to one's personal site. They are now using the emerging social networking site to create a name in the world wide web since there are millions, even billions that subscribe to Facebook.


And where does this lead?? Now, Facebook is now stuffed with innumerable information, making it a primary source of anything. Anything that you want to know is found on Facebook. It is now the fourth-largsest of traffic for media, competing against Google, Yahoo and MSN. Whether we admit it or not, it seems that they are buying the top position, to be named as the ultimate media source. And it is not impossible.


A lot of changes are happening on the search engines, and most of these are cases where websites are turning to Facebook for them to rank well. Even though the social networking site does not intend it, it is now supplanting Google News and Google RSS feed reader as far as news search and source is concern.


According to a study done by Hitwise, in January, the share of traffic going to media sites from Facebook has already doubled to 3.52 percent. It surpassed some news and media sites' and Google's 1.39 percent. Evidently, Facebook is also offering relatively functional information just like what search engines can give. Even more, internet media brands are also turning their Facebook pages into news feeds to gain more traffic for the site. This makes information easy to accommodate because you will be allowed to create feeds while being logged in your account. The shift largely affects Google because they are being now being left behind by some websites, choosing the social networking site instead.


Now, analysts are predicting that social networks, not just Facebook, can now challenge the search engines as an important mode of content discovery in some categories.