Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) cannot be challenged when it comes to referral traffic, be it desktop of mobile. According to the upcoming report from Quantcast, titled How Mobile Is Changing Content Discovery, Facebook leads more traffic on mobile devices to media websites than any other network. The study is bases upon the analysis done on top 250 news and entertainment websites on Quantcast network over a period of one year, ending January 2014.
Facebook emerged as the top source of mobile referral traffic, with 24%, wining over other social networking sites by a distinct margin. Twitter, with 7% of referral traffic and Pinterest with a mere 2%, follows the online social networking giant. But to surprise us all, Google+ failed to make it to the list despite of Google’s latest attempts to boost its presence in online social media industry. This strengthens the recent rumors of Google considering to scale down its Google+ services and focus more on its mobile version.
Facebook just crossed 1 billion mobile users mark and the social networking giant is focused to garner more opportunities in mobile space in near future. But the Facebook dominance is not limited only to mobile, last week we reported how Facebook is able to generate more referral traffic with each passing month, resulting in little over than 21% by March 2014.
The figures clearly show that internet users are making a significant time investment in Facebook, which is helping Facebook act more like a News broadcaster. Understanding the huge potential for News and Information, Facebook has introduced a new service called Fb NewsWire, targeting journalist and publishers who are always on the hunt for original piece of content and topic. The initiative is also being considered as Facebook’s new strategy to eat into Twitter’s share.
Recent efforts from Facebook, including mobile newsreader app Paper, demonstrate how the social networking giant is committed to mobile and online content. As smartphone market is poised to grow in emerging markets, the mobile referral traffic share of Facebook could see a further boost in absence of any strong competition from Google, LinkedIn or Twitter.
