UK: Social Networks Overtake Search In The UK

[engine]

UK: Social Networks Overtake Search In The UK [weblogs.hitwise.com]

Social networks now receive more UK Internet visits than search engines. During May, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK Internet visits and search engines accounted for 11.33%. May was the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK

[Robert Charlton]

What is the significance of "receive more internet visits"? It's likely that people are using social networking more and email less. What else?

One of the comments on the Hitwise discussion is particularly to the point...

But are the people using social networks to search for things they used to find via search engines?

[piatkow]

Less people making MSN or Yahoo their home pages?

The internet is a mature market now, people know what sites they want and need search less.