Brands are continuing to invest in Facebook advertising and focusing on fan acquisition. Spend in social media advertising is now additive to existing budgets rather than subtracting from other digital media channels, demonstrating the growing investment in the medium.
This is according to Efficient Frontier, a leading performance marketing company managing more than $1.5 billion in marketing spend annually on behalf of advertisers worldwide, and its subsidiary Context Optional, one of the leading providers of social marketing management for global brands and agencies.
Brands grabbing Facebook fans
Brands continued to acquire Facebook fans at 9% per month. Facebook spend share reached 2.7% of biddable online advertising spend in Q4 2011 and is expected to increase fan base by 2x by the end of 2012.
Search spend increased significantly in Q4 of 2011, bolstered by aggressive spending by retailers. Overall, search spend grew 14% Year over Year (YoY) in the United States, while retail specifically grew by 18% YoY and 40% Quarter over Quarter (QoQ), indicating that search is still the primary driver of digital marketing spend.
Mobile clicks less expensive
While Q4 search spend increased significantly, Cost Per Clicks (CPCs) decreased 5% due to a rise in mobile advertising, where clicks are less expensive. Meanwhile, improvements in more efficient ad delivery by search engines resulted in higher click-through rates, and mobile spendbecame 7-8% of search spend compared to 2% a year ago.
Systems Incorporated announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Efficient Frontier, in a transaction expected to close in the first quarter of Adobe’s 2012 fiscal year.
“Facebook continues to be where marketers are placing new bets by adding advertising spend with a focus on fan acquisition,” said David Karnstedt, President and CEO, Efficient Frontier.
“Mobile search advertising is also an area of significant investment, growing to 7-8% from 2% a year ago. We should expect both channels to grow significantly in 2012.”
Additional Report Highlights
GOOGLE MAINTAINS 80% SPEND SHAREin Q4. Yahoo/Bing clicks yielded 14% more revenue per click (RPC) than Google while also having 9% more Return on Investment (ROI) than Google. Yet Google increased click share by 2.5% YoY indicating the necessity for volume and reach from advertisers, primarily retailers, in Q4.
MOBILE SPEND specifically tablets, is becoming increasingly important for marketers as tablets account for 50% of mobile search spend and 50% of click share.
DISPLAY SPEND remains flat QoQ. However, Google’s Doubleclick increases exchange display market share by 19% YoY. Due to both inventory constraints and shifting strategies by Yahoo for their Right Media Exchange, Google extended significant share gains in biddable display.
EUROPEAN MARKETS showed strong growth in search spend YoY. France increased search spend 70% YoY and Germany 47% YoY indicating heavier investments into online advertising in 2011. The UK has been leading the online marketing industry in Europe and continues to increase search spend 19% YoY.
Outlook for Q1 2012
FACEBOOK SPEND will reach 5% of all online advertising spend by the end of 2012. As marketers improve their ability to acquire and engage Facebook fans, brands will continue to pump incremental spend into Facebook.
MOBILE SEARCH SPEND will make up 16-22% of all paid clicks by the end of 2012. As more mobile devices with full Internet browsing capabilities enter the market, mobile experiences become more robust. This is driving a shift of consumer usage from desktops to mobile devices, ultimately causing mobile advertising to become a key focus for marketers in 2012.
SEARCH SPEND will increase 15-20% in 2012 in the United States. Similar growth is expected internationally, however, the macro economic conditions in Europe may significantly affect this growth.
SEARCH CPCS will further decrease by 4%. The increase of mobile advertising and mobile search spend will contribute to this reduction. Search engine innovations by Google to provide more effective ad delivery will also continue to decrease CPCs.
YAHOO/BING will continue to pursue more ad inventory. Although Yahoo/Bing clicks continue to have better RPC (Return-Per-Click) and ROI, the search engine still needs to increase reach to improve market share. Advertisers are eager to take full advantage of the higher performance Yahoo/Bing provides, but are still looking to do so at scale.
DEVELOPMENTS IN OTHER SOCIAL PLATFORMS such as Google+ and LinkedIn will have a positive impact on social spend and the growth of this competitive space. However, Facebook will still remain the dominant social network and social publishers for advertisers in 2012.
Mobile and tablet users accounted for 10 percent of all U.S. search ad clicks during Q4 2011, according to a new report from Marin Software.
This represents a doubling of click share as a percent of total since Q3, 2011. Furthermore, the report reveals the click through rate (CTR) of search ads served on tablets, such as the iPad, was 38 percent higher than the CTR of ads on desktops.
Marin Software’s U.S. Online Advertising Report consists of key trends and statistics uncovered through an examination of the Marin Global Online Advertising Index. The Marin Global Online Advertising Index is comprised of data from more than 1000 large-scale advertisers and agencies that collectively spend in excess of $2.7 billion annually on biddable media through the Marin platform.
“In Q4 2011, we saw paid search marketers allocate a larger portion of budgets to mobile devices than ever before,” said Matt Lawson, Vice President of Marketing and Partnerships at Marin Software. “Given the favorable performance characteristics of mobile advertising today, we expect this trend to continue as advertising dollars begin to chase consumer behavior.”
Paid Search Key Findings:
During Q4 2011, 10 percent of all clicks on paid search ads in the U.S. were made either on a tablet (4 percent) or a smartphone (6 percent). Ads served to tablet devices provided a 37 percent higher CTR than ads on desktops while smartphones yielded a 31 percent higher CTR.
Across Google, Yahoo and Bing, paid search spend increased 35 percent, click volume increased 56 percent, CTR increased 23 percent and cost per click (CPC) decreased 14 percent during Q4 2011 on a year over year basis. The combination of improving CTRs and declining CPC, point to significant efficiency gains for advertisers over the past year.
Compared to 2010, search advertisers on Google saw a 48 percent increase in clicks during Q4 2011 without an accompanying increase in impressions. CTR on Google also increased 48 percent while CPC decreased 7 percent, suggesting large-scale advertisers realized efficiency gains through improved matching and more effective bidding.
On Yahoo and Bing, impressions increased 43 percent on a year over year basis, most likely as a result of advertisers building more robust search campaigns and increasing spend on the Search Alliance. Compared to Q4 2010, Yahoo and Bing advertisers realized a 44 percent increase in click volume, a 9 percent increase in CPC and a 1 percent boost in CTR during Q4 2011.
Marin Software’s U.S. Online Advertising Report also includes paid search findings specific to industry verticals, including Automotive, B2B, Education, Finance, Healthcare, Retail, and Travel.
Google Sites led the explicit core search market in August with 64.8 percent of search queries conducted, according to comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world. If we ever see one of these comScore search engine reports start by saying another search engine captured the lead, we’d be surprised, but Bing (used on Microsoft and Yahoo sites), Ask Network all made slight gains for the month.
U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in August with 64.8 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.3 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.7 percent (up 0.3 percentage points). Ask Network accounted for 3.0 percent of explicit core searches (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.
comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report* August 2011 vs. July 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Jul-11
Aug-11
Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
65.1%
64.8%
-0.3
Yahoo! Sites
16.1%
16.3%
0.2
Microsoft Sites
14.4%
14.7%
0.3
Ask Network
2.9%
3.0%
0.1
AOL, Inc.
1.5%
1.3%
-0.2
*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 17.1 billion explicit core searches were conducted in August, with Google Sites ranking first with 11.1 billion searches. Yahoo! Sites came in second with 2.8 billion (up 1 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 1 percent). Ask Network delivered 510 million searches (up 3 percent), followed by AOL, Inc. with 229 million.
comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report August 2011 vs. July 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Jul-11
Aug-11
Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search
17,141
17,122
0%
Google Sites
11,158
11,090
-1%
Yahoo! Sites
2,764
2,782
1%
Microsoft Sites
2,473
2,510
1%
Ask Network
494
510
3%
AOL, Inc.
251
229
-9%
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 64.4 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 18.5 percent (up 0.6 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.3 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.2 percent.
comScore Total Core Search Share Report* August 2011 vs. July 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Total Core Search Share (%)
Jul-11
Aug-11
Point Change
Total Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
64.8%
64.4%
-0.4
Yahoo! Sites
17.9%
18.5%
0.6
Microsoft Sites
13.4%
13.3%
-0.1
Ask Network
2.6%
2.6%
0.0
AOL, Inc.
1.3%
1.2%
-0.1
* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted 19.5 billion total core search queries in August (up 1 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.5 billion searches (up 1 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.6 billion (up 5 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.6 billion (up 1 percent).
comScore Total Core Search Query Report August 2011 vs. July 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Total Core Search Queries (MM)
Jul-11
Aug-11
Percent Change
Total Core Search
19,218
19,482
1%
Google Sites
12,456
12,541
1%
Yahoo! Sites
3,444
3,610
5%
Microsoft Sites
2,573
2,592
1%
Ask Network
494
510
3%
AOL, Inc.
251
229
-9%
“Powered By” Reporting
As a part of comScore’s commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, comScore is providing insight into the share of organic Core Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing.
In August, 66.8 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.2 percent in July) while 27.1 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.8 percent in July).
Microsoft’s director of Bing search, Stefan Weitz says the company’s search engine, Bing, which is now two years old, thinks it is ok for Bing to be second to Google for now. He points out there has been a “huge jump” in awareness of Bing and says “You should expect more from search.”
He opines on that and the future of web and mobile search in this video:
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in July with 65.1 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.4 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent (up 0.1 percentage points), according to comScore. The digital measurement firm saw increases in core search for the month.
comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report* July 2011 vs. June 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Jun-11
Jul-11
Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
65.5%
65.1%
-0.4
Yahoo! Sites
15.9%
16.1%
0.2
Microsoft Sites
14.4%
14.4%
0.0
Ask Network
2.9%
2.9%
0.0
AOL, Inc.
1.4%
1.5%
0.1
*”Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 17.1 billion explicit core searches were conducted in July, up 3 percent versus the prior month. Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion searches (up 2 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.8 billion (up 4 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 3 percent). Ask Network delivered 494 million searches (up 3 percent), followed by AOL, Inc. with 251 million (up 5 percent).
comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report July 2011 vs. June 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Jun-11
Jul-11
Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search
16,720
17,141
3%
Google Sites
10,948
11,158
2%
Yahoo! Sites
2,650
2,764
4%
Microsoft Sites
2,405
2,473
3%
Ask Network
478
494
3%
AOL, Inc.
239
251
5%
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 64.8 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.3 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 17.9 percent (up 0.4 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.4 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.
comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
July 2011 vs. June 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Total Core Search Share (%)
Jun-11
Jul-11
Point Change
Total Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
64.5%
64.8%
0.3
Yahoo! Sites
17.5%
17.9%
0.4
Microsoft Sites
14.1%
13.4%
-0.7
Ask Network
2.6%
2.6%
0.0
AOL, Inc.
1.3%
1.3%
0.0
* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted 19.2 billion total core search queries in July (up 3 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.5 billion searches (up 3 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.4 billion (up 5 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.6 billion.
comScore Total Core Search Query Report July 2011 vs. June 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Total Core Search Queries (MM)
Jun-11
Jul-11
Percent Change
Total Core Search
18,721
19,218
3%
Google Sites
12,079
12,456
3%
Yahoo! Sites
3,277
3,444
5%
Microsoft Sites
2,647
2,573
-3%
Ask Network
478
494
3%
AOL, Inc.
239
251
5%
“Powered By” Reporting
As a part of comScore’s commitment to accurately represent the continued evolution of the search landscape, comScore is providing insight into the share of organic Core Explicit searches that are powered by Google and Bing.
In July, 67.2 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.6 percent in June) while 26.8 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.6 percent in June).
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
The social media market is primed for a new player that allows users to connect with friends, according to the 2011 American Customer Satisfaction Index(ACSI) E-Business Report, produced in partnership with customer experience analytics firm ForeSee Results.
Despite a small improvement this year, Facebook (+3% to 66) is the lowest-scoring site, not only in the social media category, but of all measured companies in this report. The survey was conducted last month, before the widespread introduction of Facebook’s biggest competitor, Google+, but Facebook’s low score indicates that Google+ could easily pounce and gain market share if they can provide a superior customer experience.
“We don’t know yet how Google+ will fare, but what we do know is that Google is one of the highest-scoring companies in the ACSI and Facebook is one of the lowest,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “An existing dominance of market share like Facebook has is no longer a safety net for a company that is not providing a superior customer experience.”
We have noticed somewhat less engaged friends on Facebook and some who have said they are quitting the service.
Facebook is just one story emerging from today’s report. The ACSI E-Business Report covers three categories of e-business: social media, portals and search engines, and online news. This is the twelfth annual report of its kind, allowing companies and analysts to track the performance of these organizations over time by a critical metric: customer satisfaction.
Social Media:Wikipedia (+1% to 78) takes the top spot, while YouTube (+1% to 74) comes in a distant second. MySpace drops from this year’s Index because there were not enough users to create a statistically significant sample. Overall, social media is one of the lowest-scoring industries measured by the ACSI—only airlines, newspapers, and subscription television services score lower.
Search Engines and Portals:Google leads the search engine and portals category (up 4% to 83), but Bing follows closely, jumping an impressive 7% in one year to 82. Anything over 80 is generally considered an excellent score. Bing has grown in market share over the last year and makes up roughly 17% of the search engine market, up from 9% last year.
“While Google+ is the challenger to Facebook’s established dominance in the social media sphere, in the search engine wars, Google is king and Bing is hoping to be a contender,” added Freed. “Last year, Google’s customer satisfaction score was three points higher than Bing’s. This year, that gap narrows to one point. Bing is showing it can challenge Google in terms of revenue, market share, and the customer experience.”
News Websites:FoxNews.com (82) has a strong lead on the news and information category and is five points ahead of the next highest-scoring site, ABCNews.com (+3% to 77). HuffingtonPost.com (69) debuts at the bottom of the industry. Satisfaction with NYTimes.com drops 4% this year to 73. The study was conducted during the same time the site began to implement their metered paywall, but it remains to be seen whether satisfaction will rebound as customers adjust to the new business model.
“E-business is still relatively immature in many ways, often more interested in technology than in satisfying customers,” said Claes Fornell, founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer. ”As competition gets tougher, this is likely to change, and the successful companies are going to have powerful cause-and-effect customer satisfaction measurement systems. The losers will be the companies that underestimate the power of a dissatisfied customer and fail to upgrade their current measurement systems.”
RESTON, VA- Google Sites led the explicit core search market in May with 65.5 percent of search queries conducted, according to digital measurement firm comScore. The May 2011 qSearch data represents the second month of results including the impact of Yahoo! Search Direct, Yahoo!’s new feature that delivers search results in real-time while users type their query.
U.S. Explicit Core Search
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in May with 65.5 percent market share (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 15.9 percent and Microsoft Sites with 14.1 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent.
comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report* May 2011 vs. April 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Share (%)
Apr-11
May-11
Point Change
Total Explicit Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
65.4%
65.5%
0.1
Yahoo! Sites
15.9%
15.9%
0.0
Microsoft Sites
14.1%
14.1%
0.0
Ask Network
3.0%
2.9%
-0.1
AOL, Inc.
1.5%
1.5%
0.0
*”Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually drive n searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.
More than 17.0 billion explicit core searches were conducted in May (up 5 percent versus April). Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion searches (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.7 billion (up 5 percent), Microsoft Sites with 2.4 billion (up 4 percent), Ask Network with 502 million (up 2 percent) and AOL, Inc. with 254 million (up 2 percent).
comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report May 2011 vs. April 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Explicit Core Search Queries (MM)
Apr-11
May-11
Percent Change
Total Explicit Core Search
16,277
17,024
5%
Google Sites
10,652
11,155
5%
Yahoo! Sites
2,584
2,711
5%
Microsoft Sites
2,301
2,402
4%
Ask Network
491
502
2%
AOL, Inc.
248
254
2%
U.S. Total Core Search
Google Sites accounted for 63.3 percent of total core search queries conducted, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 19.6 percent (up 1.7 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 13.1 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.3 percent.
comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
May 2011 vs. April 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity
Total Core Search Share (%)
Apr-11
May-11
Point Change
Total Core Search
100.0%
100.0%
N/A
Google Sites
64.2%
63.3%
-0.9
Yahoo! Sites
17.9%
19.6%
1.7
Microsoft Sites
13.8%
13.1%
-0.7
Ask Network
2.7%
2.6%
-0.1
AOL, Inc.
1.4%
1.3%
-0.1
* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.
Americans conducted nearly 19.3 billion total core search queries in May (up 7 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12.2 billion searches (up 5 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.8 billion (up 17 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.5 billion (up 1 percent).
comScore Total Core Search Query Report May 2011 vs. April 2011 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch
Desire to save money and the dramatic rise in the number of local deals providers has driven a 47 percent surge in the use of local deals compared with last year, according to a recent Bing/Impulse Research survey.
Coupons and deals offering discounts on local products and services are going gangbusters, with retailers and service providers now collectively offering hundreds of thousands of deals daily — making it exciting but also challenging and time consuming for people to track and pinpoint the relevant deals.
In fact, 74 percent of survey respondents admitted they search multiple coupon sources each week, and a quarter of respondents claimed to spend up to an hour sifting through possible deals.
The Numbers Behind the Deals Craze
Everyone loves a good deal. Approximately half (47 percent) of adults surveyed said they use more local deals and coupons than last year.
People are struggling to manage their deals.
Sixty-three percent of adults will search two to 10 different coupon sources every week, and 11 percent will search through more than 10 sources.
Nearly 50 percent of adults surveyed will spend more than 15 minutes each week searching for deals, with almost one-quarter of adults surveyed spending between 30 and 60 minutes on the hunt.
Deals just might get you that second date. Ninety percent of women said they would go on a second date with someone who paid for dinner with a coupon.
Vacation deals or bust. Nearly 80 percent of people said they were likely to pick their summer vacation destination based on whether they could find a deal or redeem a coupon to save money.
Moms live for good deals.
Eighty-one percent of moms will search multiple sources every week in their effort to find coupons and local deals.
When it comes to moms versus women in general, moms are approximately twice as likely to search 10 or more coupon sources every week.
Single moms lead the pack in frugality, with 96 percent saying they are “coupon believers,” compared with 92 percent of adults overall.
Deals by location are available on iPhones or Androids atm.bing.com, which is a one-stop-shop for discounts, deals and coupons.
At least one search provider sees all this as an opportunity.
Bing mobile deals — available at m.bing.com— aggregates many of the Web’s local deals, including from Groupon, LivingSocial and Tippr, and gives people one-spot access to more than 200,000 local coupons in more than 14,000 cities in the U.S. People can search by daily deals, nearby deals, keywords or deals by category, such as restaurants, spa services, arts and entertainment, and even nightlife.
About the Survey
The survey was conducted online with a random sample of 1,058 men and women, ages 18 and older— all members of the Impulse Research proprietary online panel. The Impulse Research proprietary online panel has been carefully selected to closely match U.S. population demographics, and the respondents are representative of American men and women, ages 18 and older.
Research was conducted in March 2011. The overall sampling error rate for this survey is +/-3 percent at the 95 percent level of confidence.
TechJournal South is a TechMedia company. TechMedia presents the annual conferences:
Facebook users are not happy about the popular social networking site’s frequent changes, privacy issues and advertising, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
Although it is the most popular Web site in America, Facebook scored 64 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, which puts its satisfaction even lower than IRS e-filers. This puts Facebook in the bottom 5 percent of all measured private sector companies and in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two perennially low-scoring industries with terrible customer satisfaction.
We can understand the dissatisfaction with Facebook. While several people linked to this news on our Facebook account, comments ranged from specific complaints about Facebook to “Yeah, but here we are.”
Even in the face of extremely rapid expansion carrying it to more than 400 million users, at least 141 million in the U.S., which is close to half the country, Facebook has riled users with frequent changes to its design, privacy settings, and the way status updates are shown.
Personally, we find it continually frustrating that after following a link on a status update, you are frequently returned not to where you were but to the beginning of your Facebook page, which means scrolling through the same pages of updates all over again. Rather than fooling with the way status updates are shown, the site would be better off correction functional problems such as that.
The ACSI scale, developed by the University of Michigan’s business school and conducted with ForeSee Results, also ranked search engines and other social networking sites, excluding Twitter because it is often accessed through third party apps such as TweetDeck and Seismic.
“Facebook is a phenomenal success, so we were not expecting to see it score so poorly with consumers,” said Larry Freed, president and CEO of ForeSee Results. “At the same time, our research shows that privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising adversely affect the consumer experience.
“Compare that to Wikipedia, which is a non-profit that has had the same user interface for years, and it’s clear that while innovation is critical, sometimes consumers prefer evolution to revolution.”
“Social media has become too big to ignore, so we added it to our list of e-business measures,” said Claes Fornell, ACSI founder and professor of business at the University of Michigan. “We are quite surprised to find that satisfaction with the category defies its popularity.”
Google plunged 7 percent but continued to lead the portals and search engines industry with a score of 80. It is just the second time that Google cedes its top spot, as the “all others” category of search engine competitors jumps 5 percent to 82.
Microsoft’s Bing search engine makes a strong first showing with a score of 77, trailed by Yahoo! (76), AOL (74), and Ask.com (73).
“Google may be suffering from trying to be too many things to too many people, but it still has the most loyal following with 80% of its users citing Google as their primary search engine,” said Freed. “That said, Bing’s first measure is impressive and could put some pressure on Google.”
Brands are continuing to invest in Facebook advertising and focusing on fan acquisition. Spend in social media advertising is now additive to existing budgets rather than subtracting from other digital media channels, demonstrating the growing investment in the medium.
Mobile and tablet users accounted for 10 percent of all U.S. search ad clicks during Q4 2011, according to
Google Sites led the explicit core search market in August with 64.8 percent of search queries conducted, according to comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world. If we ever see one of these comScore search engine reports start by saying another search engine captured the lead, we’d be surprised, but Bing (used on Microsoft and Yahoo sites), Ask Network all made slight gains for the month.
Microsoft’s director of Bing search, Stefan Weitz says the company’s search engine, Bing, which is now two years old, thinks it is ok for Bing to be second to Google for now. He points out there has been a “huge jump” in awareness of Bing and says “You should expect more from search.”
Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in July with 65.1 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.1 percent (up 0.2 percentage points) and Microsoft Sites with 14.4 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.5 percent (up 0.1 percentage points), according to comScore. The digital measurement firm saw increases in core search for the month.
The social media market is primed for a new player that allows users to connect with friends, according to the 2011 
Desire to save money and the dramatic rise in the number of local deals providers has driven a 47 percent surge in the use of local deals compared with last year, according to a recent Bing/Impulse Research survey.
Facebook users are not happy about the popular social networking site’s frequent changes, privacy issues and advertising, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
