In terms of both traffic and revenue, Facebook has been leaving other social networking sites in the dust for some time. Yet in terms of web search -- the terms people use either to find information or navigate to websites -- Facebook is just now topping the bill.
For some perspective, consider the fact that "Facebook" as a root search term commands 2.8% of all brand-related searches, while MySpace accounts for around 1.1% of them. Sites such as YouTube and Twitter don't even rank a tenth of a percent of searches, according to Hitwise's metrics.
Part of what makes these results so fascinating is that many users still prefer to search for the term "Facebook" rather than typing "Facebook.com" into their browser address bars. What this could mean is that, even with less web-literate users, Facebook is still growing significantly.
It's also interesting to note that Hitwise's data takes into consideration more than 10,673 unique variations on the "Facebook" root term over the past week alone.