There’s an interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle today about how social media sites are overtaking search engines as the number one traffic source on the internet. 

Here’s an excerpt:

David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy for the digital marketing firm 360i of New York, said the importance of search engines isn’t going away.

"But there’s always been one downside to search," he said. "Consumers only spend about 5 percent of their time online searching and the other 95 percent of the time at the destination. Social media is quickly accounting for a large percentage of that 95 percent. Google’s biggest acquisitions, DoubleClick and YouTube, have been all about playing a big role in the rest of consumers’ Web usage."

He noted that last week Google purchased San Francisco’s Aardvark, a social-media search engine for questions and answers, and then unveiled Google Buzz, which allows Gmail users to post updates, videos, photos and links, Facebook-style.

"Mobile will be another new source for search, and some of that will be incremental rather than cannibalistic," he said.

"But social media’s just finding its feet and the business models are just starting to emerge. And they’re evolving quickly."

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