Consumers Consume More Online, Communicate Less

An interesting four-year analysis conducted by the Online Publishers Association (OPA) reveals that consumers are no longer using the ‘net predominantly for communications: the shift is now in favour of consuming content. This is no surprise, given that more and more content has become available online over the past few years.

The study revealed that time spent on content has increased 37% over the past four years. Time spent on search has also gone up (35%), although this represents just 5% of a user’s overall online activity.

What type of content are people viewing online? It ranges from news, to entertainment information, videos, and even checking the weather. Of course we can’t forget social networking Websites, which I’d argue (and OPA President Pam Horan acknowledges) represent not only the consumption of content, but also a new means of communication. Meanwhile, other burgeoning online communication methods, like instant messaging, have hampered the popularity of e-mail; although e-mail arguably still remains an extremely popular method of staying in touch (Blackberry, anyone?)

Marshall McLuhan is famous for having said that “the medium is the message”. In this case, the message is rapidly advancing technology. And that's always a good thing for the CE/IT industry!

The OPA’s index is derived from Web properties that account for approx. 90% of active Web users and approximately 55% of total usage time (excluding .gov, .edu, and domains of a pornographic nature).

For more information on the study, visit http://www.online-publishers.org/iai/.

comScore Reports June’s Top 50 Websites

comScore Media Metrix has released its list of the top 50 visited Websites in the U.S. for the month of June. Although much of the list is easily predictable given recent and upcoming events, it’s interesting nonetheless to see where Web traffic is going on a daily basis.

The upcoming World Series of Poker shot traffic to online gambling sites up 13% to 12.5 visitors; while the beginning of summer vacation resulted in traffic to online gaming sites increasing 8% to 64 million visitors (kids need to occupy their time somehow, right?) As adults begin planning summer getaways, hotel/resort Websites saw an 8% gain to 34.6 million visitors.

“Hollywood-type” entertainment news has a very significant effect on Web traffic: such Websites saw 7% growth to 42.1 million visitors. This was due largely to “breaking” news stories (and I use that term lightly) like Paris Hilton’s “unexpected” early release from jail. The alleged murder/suicide saga with WWE member Chris Benoit and his family led to a whopping 117% increase to the WWE Website, which reached 8.4 million visitors during the month. Pride month resulted in a 23% jump in visitors to gay/lesbian sites, which rose to 3 million for the month.

Not surprisingly, topping the overall list for the month of June was Yahoo! sites, with more than 133 million visitors; followed closely by Google sites and Time Warner network, both at upwards of 123 million visitors.

Rounding out the top 10 are (in this order): Microsoft sites (116 million); Fox Interactive Media (83 million); eBay (81 million); Amazon sites (53 million); Ask Network (52 million); Wikipedia sites (47 million); and Apple Inc. (44 million). Apple’s position in the ranking is expected, given the tremendous buzz surrounding the iPhone launch last month.

Other interesting entrants include The Weather Channel (No. 13); Facebook (20); and Wal-Mart (21). It’s intriguing that a social networking Website beat out the world’s largest retailer, albeit not by much: Facebook narrowly inched Wal-Mart out for the 20th spot by a mere 43,000 visitors. It will be interesting see how the numbers fall for the month of July.

Click here to view the full top 50 list.