The impact of social networks on search

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01/01/08

Social networking sites grew exponentially last year. Traffic to Facebook grew by 118% between October 06 and October 07 according to comScore. Photo-sharing site Flickr grew by 138% in the same period and LinkedIn 257%. The meteoric rise of Facebook in particular has resulted in changing the meaning of the internet experience for most from being a research and purchasing tool, to becoming a place for socialising and hanging out.

The leading search engines moved quickly to tie up deals with the major social network sites - Google (MySpace), MSN (Facebook) and Yahoo! (Bebo). This change in behaviour threatens the traditional Search business model built on people clicking on pay per click advertising from Search results pages.

The full impact of these relationships is yet to be felt but could have some interesting ramifications for Search in 2008.