Facebook and News: Should Google Worry?

August 20, 2015

I read “Facebook Has Taken Over from Google As a Traffic Source for news.” In my experience, data about online traffic can be a slippery fish. What’s a unique? Is a visitor a human or a software script? Did the log file overwrite itself? Did the administrator dutifully make copies of log files just in the off chance that one of those FAA super redundant computers finds a way to crash?

Now to the write up. Here’s the passage I highlighted:

according to new numbers from the traffic-analytics service Parse.ly, Facebook is no longer just vying with Google but has overtaken it by a significant amount. Parse.ly’s chief technical officer Andrew Montalenti said in an interview with Fortune that the company’s latest estimates show that social-media sources (of which Facebook is by far the largest) accounted for about 43% of the traffic to the Parse.ly network of media sites, while Google accounted for just 38%.

Let’s assume that these data points are accurate?

Google’s revenue is the golden goose which continues to lay eggs like Loon balloons, self driving cars, and solving death. If Facebook continues to siphon traffic and, therefore, revenue from Google, excitement will ensue.

Stephen E Arnold, August 20, 2015

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Facebook, Financial, Google, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.