Editor of Mashable Weighs In on the Facebook vs Google Wars

(CNN) — Facebook beat out Google as the No. 1 most-visited site in the United States in 2010, according to Internet analytics firm Hitwise.

Let’s begin by admitting that the Hitwise data doesn’t represent the whole truth. For starters, Hitwise only measures unique visitors in the United States. What’s more, Hitwise measures sites on a per domain basis: If the analytics firm were to include Google-owned YouTube in its calculations, Google’s network of websites would outrank Facebook properties.

Identity Wars

The first area in which Facebook has bested Google is online identity. Remember the days when trying out a new website required entering your name, username, password and other details into a form? Now sites can opt to use your Facebook account for one-click signup, making life easier for both websites and their users.

Social struggles

Where else is Google behind? How about “social,” one of the biggest Web trends of the past five years? Understanding the connections between people is Facebook’s core competency, but Google has struggled to compete in the social networking arena.

Google Buzz, widely considered a flop after a highly anticipated launch this year, unsuccessfully tried to turn Gmail contacts into social networking friends. Gmail users, it turned out, didn’t need yet another social network, and didn’t see their email contacts as synonymous with their real-life friends. That’s a major hurdle for all of Google’s social efforts: The company doesn’t possess a “social graph” of our real-world connections.

Search Rivalry?

Google is synonymous with search and continued to reign supreme in 2010. Surely this is the one area in which the company can maintain its lead in the coming years.

Google would indeed prove difficult to unseat in search, and yet Facebook may eventually gain a little ground here, too. Not only does Facebook possess a large database of every users’ personal preferences, but its increasingly popular “Like” buttons allow members to express interest in particular Web pages.

See more at www.cnn.com