Comments for State of the Mobile Web: Long Tail Sites Increase Their Presence

State of the Mobile Web: Long Tail Sites Increase Their Presence

2008-09-24T21:20:13Z

Browser vendor Opera, which is a stronger player in the mobile browser market than it is on the desktop, has just released more data on of the state of the Mobile Web. The latest report tells us that usage of the mobile Web continues to grow in terms of unique users and page views. What's more, 'long tail' sites are showing up well in the data too, which is a sure sign the Mobile Web is gaining traction in key growth markets like the U.S. and China.

The company states that in August, their mobile browser Opera Mini (our coverage) was used by approximately 17.3 million users, who viewed more than 4.1 billion pages - about 242 pages per user, per month.

]]> The user numbers represent a 9.1% month-on-month increase from July and more than 357% compared to August 2007. Over 12 million sites were accessed in August. As with the PC web, there is a Long Tail effect - 87 sites generating more than half of the 4.1 billion global page views. Opera concludes that "mobile Web users spend a significant amount of time browsing the Long Tail of the Web in addition to the most popular online destinations."

Looking at the U.S. market, the report states that the top 100 sites (in terms of page views) generated 48% of that country's total page views via Opera Mini. However that figure varies quite a lot internationally - it is 57% in the U.K., 52% in India, 38% in South Africa and 76% in both Indonesia and China. Indeed in China the top 11 sites generated over half of Opera Mini's page views. In Indonesia it's pretty much a one-site show, with Friendster "generating over half of that country's Opera Mini traffic all by itself in the month of August."

The top 10 sites in the U.S. (in terms of number of unique users) has stayed fairly stable. Here is the top 10 U.S. list for August:

1. google.com
2. myspace.com
3. facebook.com
4. wikipedia.org
5. yahoo.com
6. nytimes.com
7. gamejump.com
8. accuweather.com (up from 9)
9. youtube.com (down from 8)
10. my.opera.com

As a point of comparison, the top 10 english language websites ranked by Alexa at time of writing is:

1. Yahoo!
2. Google
3. YouTube
4. Windows Live
5. Microsoft Network (MSN)
6. Myspace
7. Facebook
8. Blogger.com
9. Orkut
10. RapidShare

It's a little surprising to us that Yahoo is only ranked number 5 in the Mobile Web in the US. Although with MySpace and Facebook number 2 and 3 respectively, that shows that social networking on your mobile is one of the top use cases for using the Mobile Web (after searching on Google).

See also our earlier analysis of Opera's demographic data about Mobile Web.

Comment from John Smith on 2008-09-24

2008-09-25T06:21:29Z

It's interesting that most of Opera's top 10 sites are the ones that come as the default bookmarks in their browser.

Comment from Wogan May on 2008-09-25

2008-09-25T08:27:50Z

@Smith - Nope.

Most new users will visit all of those in turn, just to see what they are. I can understand why gamejump is popular, but I honestly expected to see wunderground.com here. It's a kickass mobile weather service.

Comment from DJChang on 2008-09-25

2008-09-25T14:37:29Z

Impressive growth for Opera, but not significant when compared to the global view.

Mobile phones swamp the number of PC users; yet, the 4 billion views is 0.4% of the total views, possibly less.

242 pages per month compares to over 1,000 average per month per user, possibly 2,500 in the USA.

In international counties, the mobile phone may be the only Internet access. Thus, these numbers are even less impressive.

Still, mobile use is emerging and promising. iPhone and Google Android are likely to make these numbers a substantial portion of the total.

-Dash
http://adecon101.blogspot.com/

Comment from Elizabeth Coker on 2008-09-25

2008-09-25T18:22:36Z

Regarding your comment regarding your surprise at Yahoo being ranked at #5 - you need to remember that Opera's statistics are based upon what Opera can track - users with the Opera Mobile browser installed. It is my understanding that all Opera Mobile requests pass through Opera's transcoding engine to ensure the content is optimized for mobile. So anyone accessing the Web via a carrier browser, a RIM, iPhone, Symbian or Windows Mobile browser is most likely not represented in the Opera data. Something to consider when reporting this kind of data.

Comment from Nick Stamoulis on 2008-09-25

2008-09-26T00:22:32Z

Interesting data! Opera Mini certainly stomps the competition in terms of a mobile browser . I'm surprised other browsers haven't taken it to mobile the way they have.

Comment from Spyware, Trackware, or Adware - What exactly is the Alexa toolar? on 2008-10-01

2008-10-01T07:08:57Z

Antivirus company McAfee also assigns a danger to the Alexa toolbar. The tests conducted by the former on the Alexa toolbar showed downloads that are thought to be spyware, adware, or other unwanted programs.