[nostrademons]

[facebook] was the most common search query when I was at Google (roughly the period covered by this graph), and [facebook login] would alternate between #2 and #3. Neither of your options seem likely at all to me - over the time I was there, I witnessed people becoming more likely to navigate to sites via Googling them rather than clicking, not less. The trend is even more pronounced with mobile, where basically nobody types in a URL, they use voice search and speak the name of the site.

I would bet on the Facebook mobile app being a major cause, though. Instead of hitting the web version at all, they're opening the mobile app.

[Waterluvian]

Do people really voice search for things like that? Aside from drivers going hands-free, I have never seen a colleague or friend use voice commands where it wasn't just for the novelty.

[nostrademons]

I do, and I've heard a bunch of my friends do it. On Android voice recognition is both fairly reliable and really easy, so why not?

[Waterluvian]

Yeah it absolutely is reliable and easy. I just haven't seen it catch on among my circles. Interesting.

[wutbrodo]

IME, the first people in my friend group who started doing it were the ones who weren't insecure about looking "uncool" (so a combination of unapologetic techies and people without low self-esteem). Afaict, that's the main reason that people don't use a feature that would otherwise save tons of time.

[genofon]

I'm not afraid of being seen as an uncool geeky, but I would never use it as I don't like to broadcast what I am looking for to all my neighbors, even when I am alone I prefer silence, typing now requires basically the same amount of time.

[prodmerc]

Yes, I like voice search.

I still won't use "OK Google", because it's the new Bluetooth headset, only douchebags use it in public. Come on Google, how much do you lose by allowing custom phrases?

[prodigal_erik]

More than one would be good, but it's probably hard to explain to layman how to choose a phrase for which they can create an accurate model that's so cheap it can run continuously.

[maverick_iceman]

Also consider that people are less likely to use voice search if they are around others. So that might explain why you haven't seen friends/colleagues do it.

[maverick_iceman]

I use voice search all the time, even in a desktop. It's much faster than typing.

[alehul]

With the native iOS app being released in 2012, the timeline would be perfect for that, yeah.

Does the mobile app take away that much usage from the web? I can see how it'll increase overall usage as people will use FB when they otherwise couldn't, but I imagine anyone who could be using it on a computer will still use the web version over a mobile app (web seems more functional, especially so with the recent Facebook/Messenger division).

[nostrademons]

A lot of workplace usage has shifted to mobile. Many workplaces will monitor all your Internet usage, and so once mobile became available, many people decided that rather than letting their employers know how much time they waste during the day, they'd use their own private Internet connection for that.

We saw a similar effect at Google with porn queries, particularly during the day. As soon as image search came to mobile Google, many porn queries moved to mobile; as of 2013 porn queries were twice as likely on mobile search as desktop.

[autokad]

80% of facebooks revenue comes from mobile, so i wouldnt be surprised if that contributed a lot.

however, i dont see how facebook being #2 and #3 among searches means anything against the fact that most people either dont close facebook or as soon as they type 'f' facebook.com is autocomplete. unless you get to see how many autocompleted hits they are getting, you are experiencing a selection bias

[deadowl]

Was that also the case with people googling google.com? https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=google.com

[brockvond]

I agree with this... also the rise of predictive searching in browsers and the omnibar etc.

[perseusprime11]

Also, why would you search for facebook anymore since everyone knows facebook.com site at this point.

[jacquesm]

Because search is the new navigation, whether you like it or not.

[pizzetta]

Yep, it's the new navigation because of search noted above and because of typo squatters with malware.

[forrestthewoods]

Not on mobile. Not to launch an app.

[Frqy3]

I never type in URLs directly. It is either a single click on the menu bar/blank tab, or else I go via a search engine to reduce the risk of landing on a typo squatter.

[netsharc]

I've seen several ads on TV and billboards which just say "Search for $brandname $productname" instead of a URL.