Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) social media offering Google+ had a good showing with a score of 78 in its first appearance in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report, released Tuesday. Google+ tied for first place in the Social Media category with Wikipedia. Meanwhile, rival Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) fell 8% from last year to 61 on the 100-point scale, setting a new record-low score for the category. Facebook users frequently complain about ads on the site, changes to the user interface and ongoing privacy concerns. The report suggests that Google+ benefits from an absence of traditional advertising and what is perceived as a superior mobile product.
In the News and Information category, FoxNews.com not only stays on top for the third consecutive year, but its score improved 2.4% to 84, an all-time high in this category. Distant second and third place finishers ABCNews.com and USATODAY.com each slipped 1.3% from last year. The Huffington Post remains at the bottom of the category for a second-straight year with a score of 69.
And, no surprise, Google remains at the top of the Portals and Search Engines category, though its score did slip from a year ago. So did those of Microsft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Bing, AOL (NYSE: AOL) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO). In fact, the whole category was 1.3% lower than a year ago.