Charles Miller has had his media diet reshaped by social networks.
Just a year ago, the marketing executive for DirecTV in Los Angeles began his day by looking at the home page of the Yahoo website, surfing links to the major news stories selected by the site's editors. But today Mr Miller begins his day on Twitter and Facebook - primarily social networking sites - where he reads stories and watches videos suggested by his friends and connections.

Mr Miller's changing habits are representative of a broad shift occurring among internet users.

With social media on the rise, traditional internet portals such as Yahoo and AOL, once the front doors to the online world, are being spurned in favour of social sites, where users are discovering a new, more personal filter to the infinite world of the internet.