In the most recent sign that Facebook is encroaching on Google's heels, the 2011 study from Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism shows that the social network is becoming an important traffic mover in the world of online news.
Google may still hold the top spot as the primary traffic driver to news websites, but according to a new study from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, social networking giant Facebook is emerging as a “critical player” in the Internet mechanisms that push readers to news stories.
“Google and Facebook are increasingly set up as competitors (for) sorting through the material on the Web,” said Pew in the report. “If searching for news was the most important development of the last decade, sharing news may be among the most important of the next.”
While this may sound impressive, Facebook currently remains well behind the top three traffic drivers, which include Google, the Drudge Report and Yahoo. Despite positive numbers from Facebook’s corner, the study shows that Twitter is a terrible traffic driver: “Twitter appears at this point to play a relatively small role in sharing of links to news sources,
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