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Analyst Speak - Time to replace page views as usage guide

Platform: Internet | Author: Alex Burmaster Nielsen//NetRatings | Source: NMA magazine | Published: 16.08.07

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Nielsen//NetRating's recent announcement promoting total time as the key user engagement metric, rather than more traditional measures like the page view, has created a lot of buzz. Historically, the page view has been the currency of online advertising, so naturally publishers have been asking what the shift to total time means for them.

New technologies make the page view a less relevant guide to how users are behaving online. The likes of rich internet applications, Flash and streaming...

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... mean users consume less content through pages of 'static' content.

The user experience becomes more dynamic - for example, watching a ten-minute news video as opposed to reading ten pages of text. So while the page view remains important, the industry has to look elsewhere for a more equitable advertising currency.

So how does the landscape - the share of voice for different online sectors - change when considering time instead of page views? It's worth clarifying that we're dealing with genuine 'in-focus' time - the single browser tab/application being viewed.

The Search Engines, Portals and Communities category loses share of voice, accounting for 26% of all UK page views but just 17% of total in-focus time. It's overtaken by Telecoms/Internet Services, which doubles its share of voice (mainly due to instant messaging) from 13% of all page views to 25% of all minutes, and Entertainment, which accounts for 21% of minutes but 19% of pages.

Time is about consistency. It brings all web environments into play, including those marginalised by the page view, such as applications, videos and games. Not surprisingly, these show the biggest leaps in share of voice.

Instant messaging sites account for just 0.4% of all UK page views but over 13% of total time. Games sites' share doubles from 2.6% of pages to 5.4% of time. Software manufacturers and multi-category entertainment sites, which include applications like Windows Media Player and iTunes, are the other beneficiaries of a time landscape. The former makes up just 1% of page views but 5% of time.

Time gives a more complete view of the whole internet, showing how fragmented internet consumption really is, and illustrates how important it is for publishers to evaluate the changes these rich-internet technologies bring.

Alex Burmaster is European internet analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings