Newspaper sites are more popular with internet users than social networks such as Facebook and Myspace, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The statistics, which were also quoted in a Washington Times post, show online news outlets topped the tables with satisfaction scores of 82 per cent (FoxNews.com), 77 per cent (USAToday.com) and 76 per cent (NYTimes.com).

By comparison, social networking site Facebook achieved just 64 per cent, while Myspace was even lower at 63 per cent.

According to the report, this puts Facebook in the bottom 5 per cent of all measured private sector companies.

Wikipedia claimed the highest social media rating with 77 per cent, while YouTube achieved 73 per cent. Search engines also outperformed social media, with Google receiving 80 per cent, closely followed by Bing at 77 per cent.

This was the first time social media websites have been measured by ACSI, which pulls data from interviews with around 70,000 customers.