As I noted in my panel dust up with the head of Google’s universal search product, I found it interesting that YouTube was being pushed so directly into Google’s universal search results. This from Hitwise I also find interesting:
One interesting trend that I have noticed is that search engines and social networks are now accounting for an equal share of referred traffic. Last week (ending April 12, 2008) the share of upstream traffic from search increased 35% over the same week the previous year, while the referred traffic from social networks declined 20%.
I am curious if this trend is because of natural causes, or an intentional effort by Google to counteract an otherwise disturbing reality: that social networks were better at driving traffic to video than search. It has implications…if consumers were to get in the habit of finding their video through social nets, and not search, that could hurt future revenues at search sites.
When, I wonder, did Google start integrating video into its results? Why, May of 07, exactly the same time the orange line started its travel downward. Interesting.