Check out this story from The Financial Times:

Social networking website Facebook has capped a year of phenomenal growth by overtaking Google’s popularity among US internet users, with industry data showing it has scored more visits on its home page than the search engine.

In a sign that the web is becoming more sociable than searchable, research firm Hitwise said that the two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s 7.03 per cent.

It is the first time that Facebook.com has enjoyed a weekly lead over Google.com. The lead may be slim, but it has become inevitable as Facebook’s popularity has grown rapidly from just over 2 per cent of visits a year ago. Heather Dougherty of Hitwise said that Facebook had “reached an important milestone” with the weekly figures.

Facebook’s membership has more than doubled in the past year, passing the 200m mark last April and 400m in February.

The article continues …

Facebook’s trajectory suggests that it will soar ahead of Google.com in the coming months. However, social networking sites have fallen in the past. Google.com had led since September 2007, when it overtook News Corp’s MySpace.com.

Internet users worldwide spent more than five-and-a-half hours a month on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82 per cent increase over the previous year, according to the Nielsen Company research firm.

US users spent nearly six-and-a-half hours on Facebook compared with fewer than two-and-a-half hours on Google.

This article reinforces our belief about the power of social networking. 

Contrary to the view of some who view social networking as being the mother-of-all time wasters (which in many cases I agree), Facebook can be used as an avenue for building lasting connections with your market base.

Facebook is here to stay, and technologically competent ministers ought to take advantage.