• Read Write Web, Tuesday, December 29, 2009 12:23 PM

Facebook hit an audience milestone recently when it crossed 100 million monthly visitors in the U.S. in November, according to comScore. Now, for the first time, the social network also became the No. 1 most visited site in the U.S. on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, according to Web analyst firm Hitwise.

It makes sense that Facebook would benefit from the social nature of any major holiday, especially Christmas, as people turn to the site to send greetings, share photos and otherwise connect with friends and family.

Last year, Facebook was runner-up to Google on Christmas. During 2009, Google and Yahoo Mail both drew more traffic than Facebook, Hitwise says. But Facebook was the most popular search query across all search engines used in the U.S. Go figure.

ReadWriteWeb suggests Facebook's traffic gains this month bode well for its controversial privacy upgrade. "One Christmas gift Facebook users may not have expected: December's major shift away from Facebook's initial nature as a privacy-centric social network. Apparently that didn't slow people down from visiting the site on the holidays."

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