Just how big is social networking?

Pretty big, according to Google Trends. It's been consistently growing in popularity over the last few years, and it looks due to get even bigger.

Google Trends monitors the ups and downs of Web site traffic. I spent a good 10-15 minutes looking at a number of sites, including traditional media and newspapers like the New York Times, CNN, and my hometown paper the Buffalo News. Such sites have so many ups and downs in their traffic - each looks like a roller coaster. And the bad news is that they've all pretty much hovered around the same spot the last three or four years. Not much of a trend upward.

Social networking sites? All on the up. Check these diagrams out, again per Google Trends. Very, very interesting, and telling of what the future may hold. And worth noting for journalists, as our industry continues to look for a better model to serve the public online:

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