Facebook user base is exponentially growing. For the month of May, Compete (www.compete.com), a web analytics company, produced data that shows the number of people visiting facebook from US has tremendously increased to 82.9 million. On top of it, 65 million unique visitors were generated by services or websites running on a platform which is known as Facebook Connect. This brings the total to 113 million facebook user visits from US alone. The traffic on MySpace is on the decline and surprisingly the growth of twitter has come to a halt.

Not only is facebook leading the marathon of social networks, internet giants such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo! who earlier competed among themselves have now got a new entrant staring them in the face to break their competition triad existing for so many years. Facebook in just 3 years has gotten to the level that took others approximately a decade to reach.

Though it seems unfair to compare facebook with the other web giants as they all are aimed at different goals and groups of users but there is no denying to the pervasive influence of facebook in our routine lives. People are already relying more on it to use it as a communication medium than any other tool. The surge in the popularity of the facebook has resulted in it being an ultimate destination for social networking.

Facebook raised a lot venture capital. In fact, the amount of money it raised is greater than the funding got by any of the popular social and professional networking sites. The current valuation of facebook stands at $16 billion. There is a generally held belief that facebook, though, has a large number of registered users, but the high-value users from Japan, UK and US registered with facebook are still not more than other social networking services such as MySpace; meaning MySpace even today is more valuable than facebook. This argument seems valid but keeping in view the steep growth of facebook users, one can easily imagine how far this service can go in the years to come.

Looking at some figures from Compete.com, Google, Yahoo and MSN got 145.5 million, 135.5 million and 97.5 million unique visitors. As mentioned earlier, facebook is reported to have received 113 million unique visits which means it has already taken the lead on MSN and is swiftly approaching the next two.

Those days are not too far when facebook will become the ultimate choice of people who want to socialize, bond and network. No wonder this facebook is well on a path to become a household service!

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DETROIT (AP) — The 2010 Ford Fusion was named Motor Trend magazine’s car of the year Tuesday, beating out the Toyota Prius, BMW 7-Series, Chevrolet Camaro and others in the closely watched competition.

It was yet another accolade for Ford Motor Co.’s midsize sedan, which got high reliability scores in the most recent rankings from Consumer Reports and was the top-selling car made by a Detroit automaker through October. U.S. Fusion sales were up 15 percent in the first 10 months of this year, to 148,045, despite a 25 percent drop in overall car sales.

Still, the mid-size Fusion continues to lag behind the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord — perennial leaders in the competitive U.S. mid-size market.

Motor Trend said the Fusion can compete with the Camry and Accord in performance, comfort and fuel efficiency. It praised Ford for offering several versions of the Fusion, including a fuel-efficient gas-electric hybrid and a sporty version with a V-6 engine.

“Ford has proven its resilience in these tough times by delivering to market a car with broad appeal to a broad range of consumers,” Motor Trend Editor in Chief Angus MacKenzie said in a statement.

Motor Trend considered 23 new or significantly refreshed vehicles. The Fusion, introduced in the 2006 model year, was redesigned for 2010 with a new lineup of engines and transmissions, new exterior and interior and new options, including the Sync entertainment system and a blind-spot warning system.

Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s group vice president of global product development, said the 2010 Fusion has a sportier look and better fuel economy than previous versions. It gets 34 miles per gallon on the highway when equipped with a four-cylinder engine and six-speed automatic transmission. The gas-electric hybrid version gets 41 miles per gallon in the city.

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan, Buick LaCrosse, Lexus HS 250h and Hyundai Genesis coupe were among the cars Motor Trend considered. The Fusion also beat out other Ford models, including the Mustang sports car and Taurus sedan.

It was the first time a Ford car had won since 2003, when the Ford Thunderbird got the honor, Kuzak said. Ford’s 2009 F-150 was Motor Trend’s truck of the year last fall. The Nissan GT-R was the car of the year for 2009.

“It reinforces the progress that we’ve made, particularly on the car side of the business,” Kuzak told The Associated Press. “When people think of trucks they think Ford, but we needed to put Ford cars and crossovers in people’s consideration.”

Motor Trend conducts road tests on each vehicle and judges vehicles in six categories: design advancement, engineering excellence, intended function, efficiency, safety and value.

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The Healthiest And Unhealthiest States

New England states top this new set of rankings, while the South still lags.

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