Tuesday, October 22, 2013

SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHTS: Facebook Grows Its US Desktop Audience, But Yahoo Holds On To Top Spot With Flat Performance

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Facebook Grows Its US Desktop Audience, But Yahoo Holds On To Top Spot With Flat Performance

Social Media Insights is a daily newsletter from Business Insider that collects and delivers the top social media news first thing every morning. You can sign up to receive Social Media Insights here or at the bottom of this post.

bii top digital web properties comScore's ranking of the largest Web properties in the U.S. remained largely unchanged in September. Yahoo held on to the top spot, attracting nearly 198 million desktop users throughout the month.

Google's desktop traffic in the U.S. stayed put at 191 million.

Meanwhile, as traffic to Microsoft-owned sites declined slightly, Facebook enjoyed a 4% increase in its monthly traffic over August. (comScore)

In Other News ...

Yahoo has hired New York Times technology columnist David Pogue and his team. The new personnel will help launch a new consumer-tech site under the Yahoo brand. (Business Insider)

Facebook's mobile app install ads now support video. In the announcement, Facebook also said that app advertisers can now bid for ads based on cost-per-action, rather than clicks or impressions. (Facebook Blog)

Between the first and third quarters this year, Vine grew its user base by more than 400%, making it the fastest growing app so far in 2013. Also interesting, the number of people who use Flickr's app has increased 146%. (Statista)

Facebook announced that its referral traffic to media sites is up 170% year-over-year. The social network also announced an article suggestion tool called "Stories To Share" for media sites. (Facebook Blog)

Facebook has lifted a ban on videos showing people being decapitated, as the social network believes users should be free to "watch and condemn such videos." (BBC)

Mark Zuckerberg invested $4 million in Panorama, an ed-tech startup that applies data analytics to student performance at 4,000 K-12 schools. (AllThingsD)