Congratulations Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Congratulations Facebook

#11

Post by omarish » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 2:47 AM UTC

apu wrote: post #3

omarish wrote: post #2

I don't think anybody types "porn" when looking for porn.. I could probably join on three more terms and exceed facebook: http://tr.im/dvoc . Just a thought -- you get what you measure.

Except that you don't exceed it with the example you cited. Facebook is clearly doing much better than those terms, starting at about 4Q 2008.

Regardless, I'm pointing out the effect that just adding a couple more points will significantly increase the results. This is more-so a proof that the example is not significant because of the variance of adding another term. Good point, though.

Re: Congratulations Facebook

#12

Post by falien » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 3:44 AM UTC

omarish wrote: post #2

I don't think anybody types "porn" when looking for porn.. I could probably join on three more terms and exceed facebook: http://tr.im/dvoc . Just a thought -- you get what you measure.

Another thing to note which significantly alters the analysis is that facebook is a brand in any country whereas porn (or the other such search terms) come mostly from english speakers.

Re: Congratulations Facebook

#13

Post by chris11 » Sun, Feb 01, 2009, 6:19 PM UTC

staunch wrote: post #6

neilc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why someone would google for "facebook" in the first place (or at least, more than once). I wonder how accurately the web search traffic for facebook correlates with its actual usage/popularity.

A surprisingly large number of people always use their favorite search engine to get to other sites. They Google for "facebook" or "www.facebook.com". This goes for all web sites.

That's the nice thing about firefox. Once I visit a site a few times it comes up in a list when I start typing the site. And if it's not in my list, I can just google it right from my address bar.