Social Media overtakes Porn on the web?

Brian Ambrozy 16 Sep, 2008 at 9:51am ET Article published in Tech

According to Bill Tancer’s new book “Click: What Millions of People are Doing Online and Why It Matters”, social media sites have overtaken porn searches on the interwebs.

Tancer is the general manager of global research at Hitwise, an Internet tracking firm.

The only question I have is: Who “searches” for porn? I would be interested to find out exactly which “search” was used to draw these conclusions. I would venture to say that many porn sites act as portals to other porn sites, and people don’t generally hit up the big “G” to look for porn.

Still, the rising star of social media sites (do I really need to list some for you?) cannot be denied.

Another trend (and a disturbing one at that) is celebrity searches completely overwhelming religion, politics, dieting, and well-being. After all, ’tis far easier to observe someone else’s life than to address the issues in your own.

Source: Reuters

Comments

16 Sep 2008 ~ 9:52am Linc This is clearly a lie.
16 Sep 2008 ~ 11:29am MiracleManS eh, I dunno. I'm with Prime on this one, how many people actually do a search anymore? I'm pretty sure they bookmark those sites just like they have google set as the homepage.
16 Sep 2008 ~ 11:43am Linc Who searches Google for social media sites? I bookmark those too...
16 Sep 2008 ~ 11:54am GHoosdum My parents Google everything. I told my dad to go to Youtube recently, and he went to Google.com and typed "UTUBE" in the search box.
16 Sep 2008 ~ 12:00pm Kwitko My father too. I don't understand why he can't type in the address bar. Even worse, I've seen people Google Yahoo.

But, relating to this article, people are trolling the social sites for pr0n.
16 Sep 2008 ~ 4:13pm CB About 40% of my students use google to get where they're going no matter how easy the address is or how many times they've been there before. Somehow, a huge chunk of the population has learned to go everywhere using Google.

I think the results are skewed mostly because using Google to find porn will just get you a bunch of spyware, thus disabling your system, and stopping you from searching for more porn.
16 Sep 2008 ~ 8:41pm NiGHTS

Kwitko wrote:

My father too. I don't understand why he can't type in the address bar.

I know exactly how you feel, it's the weirdest ****ing thing and I can't understand it one bit.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 6:55am walde I don't understand why you don't understand why many people are googling all net sites:
1) Unless you don't use the site daily, or you need to use tens or hundreds of sites even for work use, not to mention free time usage, you just might not remember the exact url address of the site. Domain extension might be com, net, org, or country code, and if the name consists of two or more words, you never remember whether there are hyphens or what.
2) It is easier to write just one word instead of the whole url.
3) Usually the main page of the site is not the page you like to go. For example, if the site has country-specific pages, google offers first your home country.

When you have google as the home page, it is so easy: just click home, write one word, and then click where you need to go.

But of course, the next person to reply has a brilliant nerdy reason why this still can't be understood...
17 Sep 2008 ~ 8:03am Thrax When you use a browser, it is so easy: click the box, type the domain, and hit ctrl+enter.

Your example one is just basic searching. Other people pointed out that people are using Google to get to sites they're quite familiar with.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 9:47am walde You obviously consider googling as a stupid way to access familiar sites, and have reasons for your opinion.
However, I was talking about understanding such a behaviour, and listed some reasons, which you missed or skipped because they were not important to you.

- ctrl+enter produces dot com. What if the domain is net, org, or some country code?
If you are not forced to use Explorer, Firefox has shortcuts for org and net, but how about country codes then?
And remembering domain extensions is another thing.
BTW, this Google-discussion started from an example where a father typed "utube" when he was supposed to go to youtube. Obviously the father did not even know it was "youtube" and not "utube". BTWBTW, I'm not THAT father...

- Usually the main page is not the page you are going to.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 9:51am Thrax You obviously enjoy making assumptions, because I don't really care how people access their websites. Sure, it's baffling, but I hardly find it stupid.

I'm also fairly certain I read your post in its entirety.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 10:22am GHoosdum

walde wrote:

BTW, this Google-discussion started from an example where a father typed "utube" when he was supposed to go to youtube. Obviously the father did not even know it was "youtube" and not "utube". BTWBTW, I'm not THAT father..

I was standing over his shoulder gritting my teeth the entire time he was doing it. I wanted to see what his way of using the internet would bring up, and sure enough, Google was smart enough to display YouTube as the first result. Still, seeing the inefficiency with which my dad browses the web really did get to me.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 10:25am Linc walde, while I wouldn't have phrased it as curtly as Thrax, your reply was remarkably defensive. The thread of this discussion centered on people who type things like "www.facebook. com" into Google rather than the address bar, not people searching for particular articles or those unsure of the domain. That was the source of our wonderment, not people who can't memorize 100 addresses.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 10:27am Thrax ^ Ding.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 11:54am walde I see. You centered the discussion on people who type the whole address into Google. Before my first reply this "centering of discussion" was not done. Instead there had been wondered why some people use Google for going to all sites, regardless of the specific method how Google is used, and I offered justification for that kind of behaviour.
But of course, your interpretation of the discussion is better than mine because I don't know you at all, so I'm not able to see the underlying meaning.

Anyway, in this matter I'm defensive only with regard to the rationality of the reasoning. I do not personally use Google for accessing familiar sites.

But you are right about me enjoying: I love to argue, and also I'm practising my english (as you see I'm far from native english speaker).
Sorry about making you as collateral damage of my hobbies
17 Sep 2008 ~ 12:03pm GHoosdum walde, the rationality of your reasoning is sound. We really enjoy members, such as yourself, who jump right in with logic and reasoning and analysis.

Welcome to Icrontic. I hope you stick around.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 3:14pm BuddyJ Where are you from Walde? Your English is very good.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 3:46pm primesuspect There is no way I would have been able to tell that English is not your native language. Welcome to Icrontic.
17 Sep 2008 ~ 6:42pm Leonardo "Walde" Hmm, Swiss? Scandanavian, perhaps? Your English is excellent. Please be a regular here. Make yourself at home.

Thanks for getting Thrax a "ding." He enjoys that!

And, speaking of The Thrax:

click the box, type the domain, and hit ctrl+enter

That's pretty cool! new to me