It’s quite literally the battle of the titans. Facebook vs Google and the race seems to be getting edgier.
January data released on compete.com now shows that the social networking site Facebook had a whopping 134 unique visitors in January. Fb seems to be galloping ahead, collecting not just eyeballs but also engaging its visitors in a way that Google and Yahoo can’t. The January figures show that in that month, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Fb ( Yahoo had 4.25 % and Google 4.1%)
So if Facebook is advancing ahead, the geeks at Google aren’t sitting back and checking email–they are, as one journalist pointed out, advancing their tanks across Facebook’s lawns. Last week saw the disastrous but interesting roll-out of Google buzz that taps into existing Gmail contacts to create a social networking system of its own, then Google bought up Aardvark-another site that lets users “tap the knowledge of people in your network.”
But whether Google manages to trounce Facebook is anyone’s guess. Already, The Times points out FB has 400 million active users (that is up from 200 last summer-Observer.com) who share five billion pieces of content a week and upload more than three billion photos each month. On an average, the report says, people spend more than 55 minutes a day on Facebook – and that is an advertising goldmine. As we also spend more time on our iPhone, iPads and the like- money is quite literally where the mobile is and there are millions others who use their mobile to access Facebook than get on Google.
So what is the future for the two big giants? We don’t know yet. But we’ll keep an eye out-between our Googling and updating status on Facebook.
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