Web portal Lycos has highlighted the stellar growth of Facebook with the news that the social networking site has made its first appearance in the Lycos 50 top searches.

Facebook, at number 25, generated more searches for the week ending 3 November than popular mainstays Dragonball (27), RuneScape (31) and Wikipedia (34).

Although MySpace (19) still ranks higher in search activity, Facebook's open source policy regarding applications, combined with other unique functionality, has allowed it to soar in popularity.

US movie American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington, gained 162 per cent in search activity after topping box office receipts this weekend to take in $43.6m.

The film beat Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie, which saw a 700 per cent surge in search popularity with web users. The death of Robert Goulet drove search interest in the singer/actor up 800 per cent.

The Lycos Top 10 Search terms for the week ending 3 November were 'poker', 'Halloween', 'golf', 'fashion', 'Dancing with the Star's, 'YouTube', 'Disney', 'World Series', 'Thanksgiving' and 'Britney Spears'.