Internet search via search engines has been around a long-time. 15 tech years or more, which is like 102 in people years. Apparently, however, search engines are on the wane, as reported by Hitwise (link here). At least in the U.K. For the month of May, anyway. For the first time, it appears that visits to social networks exceeded visits to search engines. Now, it is kind of unfair to consider this an apples to apples comparison, as they both serve different purposes at present and the difference was approximately .5%.  It is fair to say, however,  that improved search capabilities within social networks might tip the scales even further in the direction of the likes of Twitter and Facebook. During the month, Facebook accounted for the most social networking traffic, followed by YouTube and then Twitter. Check out the graphs from Hitwise, reprinted below:

Another point worth noting is that Google UK was still the top site visited overall. Check out the listings in this chart, also from Hitwise:

Regardless of your take on the results, these still represent some interesting numbers.