Facebook has officially become the number one online destination among American’s according to a report released this week by web analytics monitoring firm comScore.

According to the report, Facebook users spent 41.1 million minutes on Facebook in August, while Google logged 39.8 million minutes. Yahoo came in third place, with a still decent 37.7 million minutes spent on site.

Google on the other hand can rest relieved, knowing they passed the 1 billion global users mark in that same month, making them the most popular search destination in the world.

Breaking down “time spent on-site” numbers, Informationweek says:

“Americans spent about 9.9% of their online time visiting Facebook, comScore said, vs. 9.6% of time on Google’s sites, including Gmail, Google search and YouTube. Web surfers in the United States spent approximately 9.1% of their Internet time visiting Yahoo properties”

It should however be noted that their is room for a margin of error considering comScore monitors just 2 million worldwide users and each websites’ servers to reach their number, however comScore is typically a trusted source for such statistcs.

The Facebook uptick in time spent on site comes just a few months (July) after they passed Yahoo as the number 2 destination. read more

While some celebrities have millions of Twitter followers, they simply can’t claim the type of traffic Justin Bieber brings to the site. The New York Daily News spoke with Dustin Curtis, a designer who interviewed a member of the Twitter staff and they learned that Bieber is so popular that 3% of all Twitter conversations are based around his account.

According to the report “racks of servers” are dedicated to ensure Bieber conversations run smoothly, not surprising for a pop sensation with 5,110,606 followers (at the time of this posting).

Throw in Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian, each who have more than 4 million followers and there you have it, probably a good 5% of Twitter conversations are based around less than half a dozen people. read more

Ahead of the upcoming anniversary of the September 11th attacks, McCann Worldgroup has partnered with a motorcycle club called “Ride with the 40″ to raise money for a national memorial at the Flight 93 crash site. According to AgencySpy, 3 producers from McCann have joined Ride with the 40 on a cross-country road trip to generate funds by utilizing social media throughout the journey.

The concept is to encourage people to donate to the cause via their web site and via text message, but also to create a community effort by inviting people to participate in social networking with Ride with the 40 and fellow followers. Ride with the 40 are utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare to document their journey, which began in Newark, NJ last week and will end in San Francisco. read more

After launching a WordPress only hosting environment outside the walls of Automattic many moons ago, Page.ly is now offering businesses a way to build their own WordPress empires without mucking in the world of servers and geeks.

For our next trick we are releasing the new Page.ly Vertical Platform. In a nutshell it allows selected partners to customize their own page.ly hosting system to augment their existing service, under their brand.

As an example; our launch partner Graph Paper Press is offering a customized WP install with their entire set of themes and specialized upgrades at http://pro.graphpaperpress.com.   Their market vertical is made of Photographers primarily and they have “rolled a custom install” to serve this vertical market. So rather then their customer coming to page.ly for hosting, their customer purchases a theme+support+hosting bundle in a single transaction directly from Graph Paper Press. All the benefits of page.ly like the upgrades and security go with it. Pretty snazzy eh? (Official Page.ly Blog) read more

After announcing plans of releasing a social plugin for WordPress.org fans, it looks as if Automattic has successfully ported their WP.com feature for the self hosting masses.

Anointed as ShareDaddy, this plugin allows WordPress fans to easily insert social buttons into their blog without having to dabble with lots of code.

Although there are other social plugin options available (such as the official Twitter and Facebook like buttons) WordPress fans may want to skip the alternatives and use ShareDaddy instead. read more

The much-discussed new version of the BBC’s iPlayer, which allows users to watch television shows and listen to radio programs up to a week after they’ve been broadcast, has finally been released. It’s been expected after a number of development blogs that this new version, iPlayer 3, would place greater emphasis on social interaction, and expectations have been met.

Primarily, the new iPlayer offers fairly seamless integration of Facebook and Twitter to allow users to share what they’re enjoying. This follows a growing trend towards user recommendations as tastemakers. (Apple’s Ping recently joined this fray, but Netflix dropped out of the competition.) read more

How do you reach out to the world when you’re a Japanese journalist who has been captured in Afghanistan? If you can steal away your captors phone you simple send some Tweets letting your followers know you are still alive and well.

According to PC World the reporter, Kosuke Tsuneoka, was held for five months without contact to the outside world, however when a soldier wanted to show off his Nokia N70 Smartphone Tsuenoka took advantage of the situation, showing the soldier how to use the internet on the device via Twitter.

How dumb was the soldier? He actually allowed Tsuneoka to call tech support to activate the phones internet, then allowed him to use Twitter to show him and his fellow soldiers how to reach out to other journalists. read more

This is a guest post by Sergio da Silva, a professional SEO in London.

You have a new widget or maybe you are launching a new software on your website and now you want to tell the world. Sitting in front of your computer and already late for an appointment, you are trying to come up with unique and eloquent copy that doesn’t include the words ‘luminous,’ ‘ground-breaking,’ or ‘elegant.’

Unfortunately, I can’t help you with that. The online press release is still going to have to include some gripping and persuasive copy to attract visitors to your site or blog. In fact, the online press release relies even more heavily on good language, since it doesn’t include big colored fonts, cover art or creatively inserted quotes from reputable sources.

What I can help you with is how to address the particular requirements of the online press release. read more

There’s been much (and much and much) ado about upcoming Facebook movie The Social Network, based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, but relatively little buzz has descended upon another social media movie soon to debut: Catfish.

Catfish is a documentary tale about a photographer, Nev Schulman, who is contacted by an eight year old girl, asking permission to paint one of his photographs. Her ensuing painting draws Nev into a Facebook relationship with her and her family – and, ultimately, a romance with the girl’s older sister. According to the synopsis by Universal Pictures, unsettling information about Nev’s love interest prompts him, his brother Ariel, and Henry Joost – the latter two both filmmakers – to take a road trip to uncover the truth. read more