Facebook Flops; Google Drops

So you may have seen by now that the big ACSI (hashtag #ACSI) report on e-business was released today with a bang.

On any given year, there is big news in one of the measured categories, but this year, we have big news in all three!

• Social Media: This is the first year the ACSI has measured social media sites, and the results are surprisingly terrible. With an average score of 70, social media has the lowest industry aggregate score of any of online industries measured by the ACSI. Wikipedia leads the social media industry with a score of 77, and YouTube comes in at 73. Industry darling Facebook registers a score of 64, only one point above MySpace (63). Facebook and MySpace have scores so low, the only other companies measured by the ACSI with such low scores are airlines and cable companies.
• News and Information Sites: The big news in this industry is the debut of FoxNews.com at the top of the heap with a score of 82, which is five points above nearest competitor USAToday.com (77) and well ahead of other cable news providers MSNBC (74) and CNN.com (73). NYTimes comes in at 76. FoxNews registers the highest score ever received by any news organization in the ACSI. If I were Fox, I’d be using this in my media kit, because high satisfaction leads to high return visits and loyalty, which means more eyeballs for ads on FoxNews.com.
• Portals and Search Engines: Customer satisfaction with portals and search engines dives 7% to 77 this year and is driven largely by a 7% decline for Google (down six points to 80). Bing was measured for the first time this year, and it makes a strong first showing with a score of 77, second only to Google. What do you think, can Bing actually compete with Google?

You can download the free report here: http://www.foreseeresults.com/research-white-papers/ACSI-e-business-report-2010.shtml or catch me on Twitter (@larryfreed) with any questions about the findings.