|
The 18-34 set isn't exactly known for its patience. Many have
long since abandoned newspapers for the more interactive, immediate
convenience of the web for news.
What is perhaps more surprising is that even online they
have limited attention spans. Rather than bother with an online
edition of the local paper,
they’re increasingly looking
to portal sites like Yahoo News and AOL News for
a quick headline fix rather
than in-depth reads.
According to a
recent study commissioned by the Carnegie Corporation of New York,
there are already more than twice as many 18-34s using web portals
to get news every day than are reading newspapers every day.
According to the study, 44
percent of 18-34s reported using web portals once a day or more to
get news. Conversely, just 19 percent of those surveyed cited using
newspapers once a day or more.
The study also showed that in the
next three years more 18-34s plan to increase their use of the
internet as a news medium than any other medium.
According to the study, 44
percent of 18-34s plan to increase their use of the internet as a
news source in three years, while only 5 percent anticipate using it
less. Of those surveyed, only 25 percent said they would increase
the amount they use newspapers and 17 percent said they would
decrease newspaper use.
Visitors
to portal sites can glean the headlines without actually reading the
stories. They've caused some friction with single-source news sites,
which would rather have readers directly surfing their web pages.
The trend of favoring portals over newspapers holds for all internet
surfers, not just 18-34s. In
terms of total visitors, these portal news sites accounted
for both the most popular and fastest-growing news sites in March,
according to comScore Networks.
The most popular site in
comScore’s news category in March was MSNBC with 26.95 million
unique visitors, 48 percent of which were from the MSN portal site. Yahoo News
was second in March with 26.09 million visitors, and AOL News third
with 24.01 million.
Another portal site, Google News,
was easily the fastest-growing among comScore’s top 15 news sites
in March. During the month, Google News attracted 6.7 million unique
visitors, a 104.3 percent increase versus the 3.4 million visitors
it attracted in March 2004.
Of course, portal news sites have
their critics. Agence France-Presse sued Google in March, claiming the
inclusion of AFP photos, headlines and copy (usually a paragraph) on
Google News is copyright infringement.
Courts have already ruled that
search engines can link to other web sites, but AFP says Google uses
for free what subscribers and other news sources pay for. Google
began removing AFP content after the suit was filed.
The
mainstream media has also been critical of news portals, or news
aggregators, for their appetizer quality. On such sites, news
seekers can see all the day's headlines and not even have to link to
the original sites that produced them.
As for newspaper sites,
some are still increasing traffic, but not
all of them, and not at the rate that portal sites are growing. In
fact, New York Times Digital, the top newspaper site in comScore’s
news category for March, and No. 6 overall, attracted 8.74 million
unique visitors in March, down 4.2 percent from 9.12 million in
March 2004.
Knight Ridder Digital was right
behind the Times with 8.37 million visitors in March, up 5.7 percent versus March 2004.
Elsewhere online last week, Microsoft, Time Warner, Yahoo, Google and
the U.S. government remained the top five parent organizations, in
terms of visits to sites under their umbrellas, during
the week ended April 17, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Average
usage was steady at 16 sessions per person, as were domains visited
per person, at 35. PC time per person rose 2.08 percent to almost 15
hours and 41 minutes.
Vonage, LowerMyBills.com, Primus
Telecommunications, Netflix and Dell were the week’s top five
advertisers.
|
Top 15 News Sites
March
2005 |
|
|
Site |
March 2005 (000) |
March 2004 (000) |
March 2003 (000) |
|
1 |
MSNBC |
26,953 |
18,557 |
28,174 |
|
2 |
Yahoo! News |
26,099 |
22,258 |
23,226 |
|
3 |
AOL News |
24,009 |
N/A |
N/A |
|
4 |
CNN |
23,317 |
22,137 |
29,687 |
|
5 |
IBS Network |
10,467 |
6,864 |
N/A |
|
6 |
New York Times Digital |
8,744 |
9,121 |
12,475 |
|
7 |
Knight Ridder Digital |
8,372 |
7,922 |
7,027 |
|
8 |
USATODAY Sites |
7,234 |
6,282 |
5,218 |
|
9 |
ABCNEWS DIGITAL |
6,996 |
5,194 |
N/A |
|
10 |
Tribune Newspapers |
6,890 |
N/A |
N/A |
|
11 |
BBC Sites |
6,747 |
6,517 |
N/A |
|
12 |
Google News |
6,700 |
3,277 |
2,435 |
|
13 |
CBS News |
4,723 |
2,996 |
N/A |
|
14 |
FOXNEWS.COM |
4,692 |
3,001 |
6,347 |
|
15 |
Advance Publications, Inc |
4,456 |
3,525 |
N/A |
|
Source: comScore Media Metrix |
|
Top 25 parent companies
Week
Ended April 10 |
|
# |
Parent |
Unique Audience (000) |
Reach % |
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|
1 |
Microsoft |
72,822 |
59.4 |
0:40:06 |
|
2 |
Time Warner |
65,471 |
53.4 |
1:50:03 |
|
3 |
Yahoo! |
62,287 |
50.8 |
1:04:44 |
|
4 |
Google |
47,155 |
38.5 |
0:16:26 |
|
5 |
United States Government |
27,874 |
22.7 |
0:15:58 |
|
6 |
eBay |
25,812 |
21.1 |
0:55:40 |
|
7 |
Amazon |
14,740 |
12.0 |
0:13:50 |
|
8 |
InterActiveCorp |
14,635 |
11.9 |
0:11:57 |
|
9 |
Ask Jeeves |
13,925 |
11.4 |
0:14:13 |
|
10 |
RealNetworks |
13,485 |
11.0 |
0:24:26 |
|
11 |
Walt Disney Internet Group |
13,229 |
10.8 |
0:21:12 |
|
12 |
New York Times Company |
13,140 |
10.7 |
0:12:00 |
|
13 |
United Online |
13,003 |
10.6 |
0:30:53 |
|
14 |
Landmark Communications |
12,415 |
10.1 |
0:12:01 |
|
15 |
Viacom International |
11,695 |
9.5 |
0:14:58 |
|
16 |
CNET Networks |
10,855 |
8.9 |
0:08:02 |
|
17 |
Apple Computer |
9,908 |
8.1 |
0:21:26 |
|
18 |
Verizon Communications |
9,488 |
7.7 |
0:12:42 |
|
19 |
Gannett |
8,515 |
7.0 |
0:10:32 |
|
20 |
SBC Communications |
8,145 |
6.6 |
0:10:35 |
|
21 |
Daum Communications |
8,143 |
6.6 |
0:04:21 |
|
22 |
Cendant |
8,013 |
6.5 |
0:09:42 |
|
23 |
Bank of America |
7,933 |
6.5 |
0:25:33 |
|
24 |
Network Associates |
7,821 |
6.4 |
0:18:08 |
|
25 |
AWS Convergence Technologies |
7,820 |
6.4 |
0:12:38 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
Top 25 brands
Week
Ended April 10 |
|
|
Parent |
Unique Audience (000) |
Reach % |
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|
1 |
Yahoo! |
61,800 |
50.4 |
1:04:51 |
|
2 |
MSN |
56,940 |
46.5 |
0:36:00 |
|
3 |
Microsoft |
53,795 |
43.9 |
0:16:02 |
|
4 |
AOL |
47,146 |
38.5 |
2:19:35 |
|
5 |
Google |
46,533 |
38.0 |
0:16:08 |
|
6 |
eBay |
24,419 |
19.9 |
0:55:23 |
|
7 |
Real |
13,049 |
10.6 |
0:23:34 |
|
8 |
MapQuest |
12,537 |
10.2 |
0:07:41 |
|
9 |
Amazon |
12,470 |
10.2 |
0:13:02 |
|
10 |
Weather Channel |
12,246 |
10.0 |
0:11:58 |
|
11 |
CNN |
10,145 |
8.3 |
0:20:16 |
|
12 |
Apple |
9,908 |
8.1 |
0:21:26 |
|
13 |
Netscape |
8,842 |
7.2 |
0:17:00 |
|
14 |
U.S. Dept. of the Treasury |
8,503 |
6.9 |
0:14:43 |
|
15 |
Lycos Network |
8,139 |
6.6 |
0:04:21 |
|
16 |
About.com |
7,855 |
6.4 |
0:03:03 |
|
17 |
WeatherBug |
7,775 |
6.3 |
0:12:41 |
|
18 |
McAfee |
7,464 |
6.1 |
0:18:49 |
|
19 |
Bank of America |
7,074 |
5.8 |
0:25:15 |
|
20 |
Dell |
6,697 |
5.5 |
0:12:59 |
|
21 |
Paypal |
6,558 |
5.4 |
0:12:20 |
|
22 |
Comcast |
6,513 |
5.3 |
0:25:16 |
|
23 |
CNET |
5,831 |
4.8 |
0:06:18 |
|
24 |
ESPN |
5,578 |
4.6 |
0:24:33 |
|
25 |
EarthLink |
5,535 |
4.5 |
0:38:25 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
Top 25 advertisers
(excludes
house ads)
Week Ended April 10 |
|
# |
Company |
Impressions (000) |
|
1 |
Vonage Holdings Corp |
625,582 |
|
2 |
LowerMyBills.com, Inc. |
466,346 |
|
3 |
Primus Telecommunications |
451,329 |
|
4 |
Netflix, Inc. |
436,195 |
|
5 |
Dell Computer Corporation |
428,284 |
|
6 |
H&R Block, Inc. |
389,425 |
|
7 |
Scottrade, Inc. |
354,270 |
|
8 |
InterActiveCorp |
346,456 |
|
9 |
Viacom Inc |
324,573 |
|
10 |
Monster Worldwide, Inc. |
316,518 |
|
11 |
SBC Communications, Inc. |
310,269 |
|
12 |
BellSouth Corporation |
286,245 |
|
13 |
Ameritrade Holding Corporation |
268,954 |
|
14 |
Fidelity Investments |
254,163 |
|
15 |
TD Bank Financial Group |
244,618 |
|
16 |
United Online, Inc. |
243,195 |
|
17 |
Orbitz |
239,675 |
|
18 |
Verizon Communications, Inc. |
231,028 |
|
19 |
General Motors Corporation |
226,163 |
|
20 |
GUS Plc |
201,755 |
|
21 |
NexTag.com |
196,860 |
|
22 |
Volkswagen AG |
195,084 |
|
23 |
Lavalife Inc. |
191,582 |
|
24 |
General Electric Company |
191,309 |
|
25 |
Apollo Group, Inc. |
188,099 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance |
|
Top 25 advertising sites
(excludes
house ads)
Week Ended April 10 |
|
|
Company |
Impressions (000) |
|
1 |
Yahoo! |
4,862,547 |
|
2 |
MSN |
2,534,059 |
|
3 |
myspace |
781,829 |
|
4 |
eBay |
559,387 |
|
5 |
CNN |
530,647 |
|
6 |
Juno |
454,383 |
|
7 |
New York Times |
428,782 |
|
8 |
AOL.com |
409,827 |
|
9 |
FOXNEWS.COM |
397,804 |
|
10 |
NetZero |
364,268 |
|
11 |
The Weather Channel |
295,247 |
|
12 |
iWon |
291,780 |
|
13 |
ESPN.com |
289,245 |
|
14 |
Excite |
270,589 |
|
15 |
The Weather Underground |
237,647 |
|
16 |
Netscape |
209,620 |
|
17 |
About.com |
205,652 |
|
18 |
MSNBC |
177,930 |
|
19 |
Pogo |
173,832 |
|
20 |
EarthLink |
150,138 |
|
21 |
Drudge Report |
142,976 |
|
22 |
IMDb |
137,276 |
|
23 |
Classmates |
135,012 |
|
24 |
Realtor.com |
116,721 |
|
25 |
USA TODAY |
111,349 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance |
|
Average use
Week
Ended April 10 |
|
|
|
Current Week |
Last Week |
% Change |
|
Sessions/Visits per Person |
16 |
16 |
0 |
|
Domains Visited per Person |
35 |
35 |
0 |
|
PC Time per Person |
15:40:54 |
15:21:43 |
2.08 |
|
Active Digital Media Universe |
122,589,220 |
122,759,549 |
-0.14 |
|
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate |
205,296,695 |
205,368,700 |
-0.04 |
|
Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings AdRelevance |
|
