Compete (a R/WW sponsor) has released data that shows MySpace and Yahoo are the top websites in terms of average time spent on them by users. The data is for US users only. Here are the figures from Compete, expressed as % of total time spent online in the US in Dec 06:
Source: Compete
The good old long tail is in the house here, with 20 domains making up 39% of all the time spent online by US consumers. Another noteworthy figure is that only 2.1% of time was spent on Google.com (includes all sub-domains). But then Google is not - yet - a portal type service, unlike Yahoo which actively aims to keep users on their properties. This will probably change over time though because, as Rich Skrenta pointed out in his awesome essay, Google is poised to effectively take over the Internet. Or are they? See R/WW's point/counterpoint discussion for more on that theory.
Yahoo has received a bit of flack from bloggers and the press lately, but in terms of Web content it is still in a very strong (almost dominant) position. As Jay Meattle pointed out in the comments, Yahoo Mail is the #1 mail provider (much larger than Gmail), Yahoo Finance is probably the most trafficked Finance portal for stock quotes, Y! Answers has also now become the #1 answer service on the web, Yahoo also has Personals (personals.yahoo.com), Autos (autos.yahoo.com), Music (music.yahoo.com), HotJobs (hotjobs.yahoo.com), Yahoo Messenger, Search, News, Maps, etc.
Interesting side note: according to Alexa, almost half (49%) of Yahoo page views come from Y! Mail. Which possibly suggests that the rest of their properties aren't quite as dominant as first appears.
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I am wondering why Monster.com doesn't in the chart :P I guess everybody will spend mote time on looking for jobs right?
Posted by: PohEe.com | January 25, 2007 8:09 PM
I guess Google's $1.6 billion only buys you 0.6% of people's time spent online. That would put MySpace's TSO valuation at $32 billion.
Posted by: John Milan | January 25, 2007 10:37 PM
I spend most of my online time at Bloglines & Yahoo! Mail.
That's a very interesting thought about Yahoo! Mail and the rest of Y!'s properties. The only Y! place that I ever visit other than the mail area, is Flickr. The rest of it bores me or just seems stupid....I find better services and products elsewhere.
Posted by: Devon | January 25, 2007 10:45 PM
My observations are:
YouTube - very frightening and points to potential difficulties in the ability to properly monetize...
Yahoo - I do feel this company is a quiet giant. Google has surged ahead but Yahoo is all the time improving it's search functionality, adding loads of good content through portals, making very good acquisitions such such as MyBlog and positioning themselves nicely for the mobile web. This story has not yet been told.
MSN - surprising that with all the talk of lost ground in terms of search functionality that they are still way up there. Probabely has to do with email and good content. Something for them to build on.
Posted by: Adrian keys | January 26, 2007 6:55 AM
I spend most of my online time at:
1. Yahoo [email,feeds,news,flickr,MBL]- It's easy to move about in here. It's light to use. Recently I quite like what they're doing with the news. All popular ones in a page.
2. Google [email,search,blogger]- Since I use blogger and mail, I'm always here. So far the best search engine! I love Google Earth but seldom opens it. Another find is Google Calendar - no wonder it ranked #2 TIME's best in the web 2006. Google by the way is straightforward. I don't need a fancy interface for as long as service is good, I'll go for it.
Lately I find MSN Live search better than the previous one. I agree that MSN has good content. There are some good reads there. The problem is if its AP news, one can't even link it. :( [as of last time I checked].
Posted by: ipanema | January 26, 2007 2:19 PM
The basic problem is that Yahoo traffic is junk that is not good for targeting ads. Google gets 88% of its traffic from search result pages where they can sell targeted PPC (Pay Per Click) ads. Yahoo gets only 11% of its traffic from search.
Yahoo gets 33% of its page views on Yahoo Mail where at best you can sell low margin CPM ads. Another 32% is hits on the Yahoo home page...again, not targeted so all you can do is sell CPM banner ads.
That is the fundamental difference between Google (PPC) and Yahoo (CPM) The nature of the traffic is different and the way it can be monetized is WAY different.
I wrote a blog about this today with traffic charts that illustrate the problem. See http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/01/yahoo_cpm_versu.html
Don Dodge
Posted by: Don Dodge | January 26, 2007 3:27 PM