A recent report from Hitwise has come out with a Facebook Like valuation. For retailers, each new fan is worth 20 visits to your website over the course of a year. Hitwise also estimates that 1 in every 6 page views from UK Internet users goes to a Facebook page and 20 million hours are spent on Facebook daily in the UK alone. The numbers alone support the underlying market value of not only Facebook, but overall financial impact of the social web on the whole.
How long will Facebook hold this type of market share on the social web? It’s the question Google is asking and answering – with the release of their own social network called Google+ that is just now undergoing what the company calls a ‘field trial.’ Currently, Google+ is by invitation only and not yet available to the public but already has been receiving a fair amount of buzz – and we don’t mean the ill-fated social network released in late 2009.
Google+ has several interesting features including: Circles, Hangouts, Instant Upload, Sparks, and Huddle all of which will allow users to share information with smaller groups and benefit from access to Google’s search capabilities too. Only time will tell whether the social network can or will catch Facebook’s 700 million user level.