Industry News

Traffic to Fastest Growing Web Brands Driven by Younger Demographic

PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK, NY - December 20, 2005 - Nielsen//NetRatings, a global leader in Internet media and market research, today announced the fastest growing Web sites among the top 10 Web brands for November 2005 (see Table 1). Apple ranked No. 1 according to year-over-year growth in November 2005, climbing 57 percent over November last year, driven by traffic to the increasingly popular iTunes. Google and Amazon also saw significant year-over- year increases, growing 29 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Longtime leader Yahoo! attracted the largest unique audience, garnering nearly 104 million unique visitors during the month, and growing ten percent year-over- year. "Among the top Web brands, fierce competition for share of online visitors continues to be a catalyst for the launch of new products and features," said Gerry Davidson, senior media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "These additions appear to be spearheading much of the top Web brand growth, because they keep visitors interested and engaged," he continued. Table 1: Top 10 Online Web Brands for November 2005 Ranked by Fastest Growth (U.S., Home and Work)

• Apple
  
• Google
  
• Amazon
  
• MapQuest
  
• Real
  
• eBay
  
• Yahoo!
  
• Microsoft
  
• AOL
  
• MSN
  

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, December 2005

Younger Visitors Hit Fastest Growing Web Sites
Nielsen//NetRatings also released the fastest growing Web brands for November 2005, out of the more than 2,000 sites that met minimum reporting levels. Visitors age 12-24 are more likely than the average Web user to visit these fastest growing sites, which show approximately 50 to 90 percent more young visitors than the average Web site's audience. Image hosting site PhotoBucket led the group, growing an astounding 1,492 percent, from 983,000 unique visitors in November 2004 to 15.6 million in November 2005 (see Table 2). Social networking sites MySpace, Facebook and Memegen.net also saw impressive year-over-year growth, increasing 752 percent, 530 percent and 446 percent, respectively. Slate, a current events site ranked No. 5, growing 390 percent year-over-year. "Sites that strongly appeal to generation Y are those at which they can control the content," said Davidson. "They provide a desirable service in an entertaining format. Thus it is not surprising that many of the fastest growing sites fall into the social networking, blogging, and online member community genres," he continued.

Table 2: Top 10 Fastest Growing Web Brands* for November 2005 (U.S., Home and Work)

• PhotoBucket
  
• MySpace
  
• Facebook
  
• Memegen.net
  
• Slate
  
• M&M's
  
• LimeWire
  
• Heavy.com
  
• Wikipedia
  
• Mate1.com
  

Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, December 2005 * Fastest growing Web brands had a minimum of one million unique visitors for November 2005.

Example: The data indicates that 35.9 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the New York Times Company-owned sites or launched a New York Times Company-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 17 minutes and 11 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications. A parent company is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. A brand is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content. Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data is expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance Top 10 Advertisers, November 2005 Top advertisers, ranked by estimated spending, are based on data from AdRelevance, Nielsen//NetRatings' advertising research service. An impression is counted as the number of times an ad is rendered for viewing.

Top 10 Advertisers by Estimated Spending Total Estimated Impressions Advertiser Spending

• Vonage Holdings Corp
  
• LowerMyBills.com, Inc
  
• BellSouth Corporation
  
• General Mills, Inc.
  
• Dell Computer Corporation
  
• Scottrade, Inc
  
• QuinStreet
  
• Verizon Communications, Inc
  
• General Motors Corporation
  
• Netflix, Inc
  

Estimated spending reflects CPM-based advertising only, and excludes search-based advertising, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, partnership advertising, advertorials, promotions, email and direct response. Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser's own Web property. Example: An estimated 1.9 billion Netflix, Inc. ads were rendered for viewing at the cost of approximately $7.3 million during the surfing period. About Nielsen//NetRatings NetRatings, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT) delivers leading Internet media and market research solutions, marketed globally under the Nielsen//NetRatings brand. With high quality, technology-driven products and services, Nielsen//NetRatings is the global standard for Internet audience measurement and premier source for online advertising intelligence, enabling clients to make informed business decisions regarding their Internet and digital strategies. The Nielsen//NetRatings portfolio includes panel-based and site- centric Internet audience measurement services, online advertising intelligence, user lifestyle and demographic data, e-commerce and transaction metrics, and custom data, research and analysis. For more information, please visit http://www.nielsen-netratings.com.

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