Watch out Google, here comes Facebook

Computerworld - Facebook is giving Google a run for its money.

While Google has long been at the top of the heap when it comes to grabbing the most visitors and users' time spent on a Web site, now Facebook is making its mark.

Online researcher comScore reported this week that for the month of August, Facebook edged out Google in terms of how much time U.S. users spent on a Web site. U.S. users spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook last month, compared with 39.8 million minutes on Google's various sites, including Google News and YouTube.

Yahoo came in third, grabbing 37.7 million minutes.

"Facebook continues to grow its user base and grow engagement among its users," said Andrew Lipsman, senior director of industry analysis at comScore. "A year ago Facebook accounted for less than 5% of overall time spent online in the U.S. and today it accounts for 10%. ... This continued growth presents more opportunity for advertising now, and also more potential to engage its network for new revenue possibilities in the future."

Last March, Facebook hit a similar milestone when the social networking site replaced Google as the most visited Web site in the U.S. for a full week.

Though Google quickly returned to its top spot, for the week ending March 13, Facebook was the most-visited Web site in the U.S.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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