Goad wrote, "As Facebook continues to grow it is increasingly becoming Google’s closest rival."  Then he provided the graph below, which pretty well proves that point.

Next, Goad reasoned, "With such tight competition between the two online powerhouses it makes sense for Facebook to leverage its huge user base to branch out into other services other than social networking.  Email seems like a natural progression, especially as 9.78% of all visitors to Facebook in October visited an email service immediately before going to Facebook."

That’s encouraging news for Facebook supporters.  The thing is, though, that an email-related war between Google and Facebook might not amount to more than two also-rans fighting for scraps.  Apparently 58 percent of October’s email-related traffic headed for Hotmail, another 19 percent went to Yahoo, and Gmail saw less than five percent of visits.

Microsoft’s still very much in control of this industry, then, even if Bing hasn’t been able to pose much of a threat to Google’s search engine.

Stay tuned for more information about Facebook’s big announcement today, in any event.

Hitwise has shared some data regarding FriendFeed’s popularity in the UK. It’s growing fast, and has increased by 180% over the last 12 months in terms of traffic. It’s nowhere near what Facebook or Twitter get, but Hitwise’s Robin Goad says that "visitors to FriendFeed are typical early adopters – just the kind of people who were first to embrace Facebook, Twitter and a range of other social media success stories (as well as quite few failures along the way!)."

Hitwise provides a look at FriendFeed’s clickstream in July, and it shows that Google, Twitter, and Facebook are the biggest sources of traffic. Twitter is actually a bigger source based on this data, which should make it all the more attractive to Facebook. It would be kind of like Google getting a good portion of its traffic from Yahoo.

Facebook intends to let FriendFeed continue operating independently. It’s hard to say if Facebook’s ownership will significantly contribute to the traffic of FriendFeed.com. The acquisition appears to really be more about talent, and Facebook will likely begin incorporating FriendFeed’s technology into its own site. Either way, it’s probably a good buy for Facebook.

You can read more about the Facebook/FriendFeed/Real-Time Search Picture in the following articles:

Facebook Just Became More Important to Search

Facebook Acquires FriendFeed

Where’s Bing’s Real-Time Search?

Robin Goad, Hitwise UK’s Research Director, writes, "[S]earches for the term ‘mothers day’ have been on the rise for a few weeks, and last week were 6% higher than the equivalent week last year."  Also, it seems that top search results for the term are a wee bit embarrassing.

    Mothering Sunday

Following Wikipedia, a school for children between the ages of 7 and 11 nabbed the second spot on Google UK; Goad notes that it’s receiving "traffic that any number of retailers would give their right arm for at this time of year."  Indeed, paid ads for balloons, flowers, and perfume pretty much surround the search result.

On Google.com, after-Wikipedia honors go to a site owned by the Society for the Confluence of Festivals in India.  In a paragraph of text, apostrophes are dropped and "s"s are lost all over the place.  Furthermore, most of the writing is done in a shade of pink that’s not exactly easy on the eyes.

Amateurs should be able to do better than this; pros have no excuse for not kicking both sites to page 15 or deeper.  If your business can in any way profit from Mother’s Day search results, we’d suggest you set yourself to the task immediately.

Robin Goad, Hitwise UK’s Research Director, reported, "UK Internet traffic to newspaper websites reached its highest level in over two years last week off the back of a number of big news stories."

These stories would appear to involve Heath Ledger and Amy Winehouse, which is a bit worrisome; one might have thought things like Iran’s capture of British sailors would have warranted more attention.  You know – the self-destruction of two entertainers compared to threat of World War III.

Other recent stories focused on the global market crash, however, so that seems to imply that people still have some perspective.  Oh, well.  In any event, Goad also revealed, "For the week ending 26 January 2008, 1.48% of all UK Internet visits went to websites in Hitwise’s News and Media – Print category . . ."  And this is compared to about 1.0% of visits in April of 2005.

Again, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens to the print versions of newspapers.  But their websites appear to be getting stronger all the time.

We’re not trying to get into stereotypes; a poor man can easily blow more money than a stingy millionaire, and being wealthy doesn’t make a guy good at his job.  Still, compared to most social networks, LinkedIn’s users tend to represent two types of individuals, and as Robin Goad accurately notes, "Both groups contain the sort of people that are in demand, both as consumers and employees."

Goad writes, "[LinkedIn] over represents with two key Mosaic lifestyle groups: Group A – Symbols of Success (people with rewarding careers who live in sought after locations, affording luxuries and premium quality products) and Group E – Urban Intelligence (young, single and mostly well-educated, these people are cosmopolitan in tastes and liberal in attitudes)."  It over represents them by quite a bit, too.

Even if this doesn’t open LinkedIn up to the sort of "all-in" applications and advertising that Facebook has courted, the situation could still benefit the company and its users.  In fact, Goad’s report may well be the sort of thing cofounder Reid Hoffman will wave around (or tactfully gesture at) if an IPO ever occurs.

In the meantime, we’d suggest you take advantage of these associations regardless of what "group" you’re in.

Robin Goad, the research director of Hitwise UK, reveals, "Facebook’s market share of UK internet visits to All Categories increased to 2.01% in December."  To put this in perspective, he then adds, "Facebook’s market share has increased 10-fold over the past 12 months."

This isn’t too shocking, since in July of last year, we saw searches for Facebook overtake queries for MySpace.  Still, given various issues that cropped up in the meantime – Beacon, application spam, and so on – it’s interesting to see the fast growth continue.  Also, it’s gone on in spite of an apparent reluctance (at least in some circles) to use Facebook for business networking.

UK’s social networking scene isn’t a mirror of the US’s, however, and it may not be much good as a leading indicator thanks to the presence of Bebo.  Facebook will have to take this victory in stride without pausing any of its improvement programs.

To be fair, Hitwise’s Robin Goad writes, "We aren’t morbid enough to have a Hitwise ‘Lifestyles – Divorce’ category . . ."  And to be accurate, this data comes from the UK, not America.  Still, marriage certificates are getting thrown out with sad-looking Scotch pines at what seems like a record rate.

About 0.0012 percent of UK Internet traffic went to a divorce site on January 8th, according to Goad.  This was down from 0.0015 on January 7th, but still up significantly from the December 25th standing of 0.0004 percent.  Goad also reveals "the number one downstream site visited after quickie-divorce.com": Her Majesty’s Courts Service.

Yikes.  Well, at least the visitors’ follow-through can be commended.  That’s the follow-through on their divorce site visits, of course, rather than any original marriage vows.  In that respect, well, everyone may need to do some work.  But Goad also explores a happier subject – wedding site stats – for the optimists out there.

Own a travel site, an airline, or a resort in a warm place?  This is your time (although if you own either of those last two things, any time is arguably your time).  Hitwise’s Robin Goad reports, "Last week saw the first notable increase across all three major categories . . . since the traditional post-summer decline."

Admittedly, some of this interest may be business-oriented – it’s tough to explain why else anyone would want to visit New York in January – but on the whole, destinations do appear to be touristy in nature.

Sites pertaining to Australia, New Zealand, and Tenerife should be seeing boosts in traffic right about now.  Goad adds, "[A]lthough closer to home there has also been an increase in searches for flights to Paris and Amsterdam."

The increases will probably die down towards the end of this month – most people have to go back to work sooner or later – so if you can, it’d be best to take advantage of them in the near future.

The proof comes from Hitwise’s Robin Goad, who puts Checkout’s traffic ahead of PayPal’s from roughly December 6th to the present.  For a long time prior to that, Google’s offering had trailed by quite a bit.

It’s not all good news for Checkout, though, as Goad goes on to indicate that the PayPal crowd might be more willing to make purchases.  "While I can’t provide abandonment data, it is likely that people visiting another retail site after either Paypal or Google Checkout may have not completed their purchase," he writes.  Later, he continues, "[M]ore people currently visit another Shopping and Classifieds site after Google Checkout than after Paypal, and that the gap is widening."

Profitability is just as important (if not more so) as popularity, so this data may make some companies rethink their position.  Also, Google Checkout has been running heavy promotions in order to capitalize on the holiday shopping season, and as those dry up in the spring, there’ll be even less reason for people to stay loyal.

One way or the other, the stats will be worth keeping an eye on.