More time spent on Facebook than Google: comScore

(AFP PHOTO LOIC VENANCE)

US Web surfers spent more time on Facebook than on Google sites in August, the first time the social network has surpassed the Internet titan, online tracking firm comScore said Friday.

Americans spent a total of 413 million minutes on the Internet during the month and about 10 percent, or 41.1 million minutes, were spent on Facebook, comScore said.

A total of 39.7 million minutes were spent on Google sites, which include the Google search page, YouTube, Google News, Gmail and others. Yahoo! sites were next with 37.7 million minutes.

In July, US Web surfers spent 40.5 million minutes on Google sites, 39.9 million minutes on Facebook and 38.7 million minutes on Yahoo! properties, comScore said.

A year ago, in August 2009, US Web surfers spent 34.0 million minutes on Google sites, 16.8 million minutes on Facebook and 41.7 million minutes on Yahoo! sites.

Facebook announced in July that the number of members of the social network had topped the 500 million mark.

The privately held Palo Alto, California, company does not publish its financial results but research firm eMarketer said last month that Facebook should rake in over one billion dollars in advertising revenue this year.

The Mountain View, California-based Google reported second-quarter net profit of 1.84 billion dollars on revenue of 6.82 billion dollars.