Amongst January 2011’s U.S. top 10, Wikipedia (+6.7%) and MSN (+4.2%) saw the greatest monthly increase in Unique Visitors through PCs/laptops from home and work locations.

While Facebook, by some way, had the highest average time per person, Ask Search Network saw the greatest gain in monthly time spent, with the average visitor spending just under 11 minutes, up 16.4% from December 2010. Wikipedia, Facebook and Google shared similar growth in time spent, up 6.8%, 6.6% and 6%, respectively.

Top 10 U.S. Web Brands for January 2011 (Home and Work Locations)
Rank	Brand	Unique Audience (000)	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)	MOM % Change in UA	MOM % Change in Time PP
1	Google	153,623	1:21:00	-0.1%	6.0%
2	Facebook	135,622	7:24:12	0.0%	6.6%
3	Yahoo!	130,854	2:20:10	-1.1%	2.1%
4	MSN/WindowsLive/Bing	121,019	1:26:39	4.2%	-0.8%
5	YouTube	103,868	1:21:54	-1.9%	-0.1%
6	Microsoft	90,221	0:41:53	-0.2%	-3.4%
7	AOL Media Network	76,173	1:58:31	0.0%	-0.2%
8	Wikipedia	65,698	0:15:31	6.7%	6.8%
9	Ask Search Network	65,454	0:10:40	0.3%	16.4%
10	Apple	63,296	1:18:48	-6.2%	-6.9%
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read as: During January 2011, 153.6 million unique U.S. people visited Google using PC/laptops from home and work locations

When looking at the ten most popular Current Events and Global News sites, each saw month-over-month growth in their audience, as is often the case between December and January. Yahoo! News was the top site in the category with 46.3 million unique U.S. visitors, up 6% from December 2010. Yahoo! was followed by CNN Digital Network (+15%) and MSNBC Digital Network (+15.7%), both with double-digit gains in visitors.

Acquired by AOL earlier in the week, The Huffington Post was the #9 news site in January drawing 13.3 million unique visitors who averaged nearly 12 minutes on the site. Huff Post’s new sister site – AOL News – ranked #4 with 22.1 million unique visitors from home/work computers.

Although the Huff Post is now part of the same stable as AOL News, there was already some overlap amongst their audiences. In January 2011, 27% of US visitors to AOL News also visited Huff Post, while 44% of visitors to Huff Post also visited AOL News in that same month.

Top 10 U.S. Current Events & Global News Sites for January 2011 (Home & Work)
Rank	Brand	Unique Audience (000)	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)	MOM % Change in UA	MOM % Change in Time PP
1	Yahoo! News	46,274	0:14:54	6.0%	22.5%
2	CNN Digital Network	37,008	0:22:37	15.0%	22.7%
3	MSNBC Digital Network	32,494	0:16:36	15.7%	13.4%
4	AOL News	22,060	0:14:00	3.9%	0.2%
5	Tribune Newspapers	16,929	0:10:10	21.7%	3.9%
6	Fox News Digital Network	16,652	0:19:14	16.0%	-1.8%
7	NYTimes.com	15,503	0:15:15	24.0%	8.9%
8	ABCNEWS Digital Network	14,551	0:05:55	11.2%	0.6%
9	TheHuffingtonPost.com	13,266	0:11:39	12.0%	-18.4%
10	Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division	12,763	0:18:04	20.4%	22.5%
Source: The Nielsen Company
Read as: During January 2011, 46.3 million unique U.S. people visited Yahoo! News using PC/laptops from home and work locations
Note: The “Current Events & Global News” category does not include financial news sites such as Wall Street Journal, Reuters, etc. These sites are in a separate “Finanical News & Info” category

When looking at overall computer and Internet usage, U.S. Internet users spent more time online (+10%), visited more domains (+5.3%), engaged in more sessions (+3.5%) and viewed more pages (+3.5%) during January than they did last month.

Average U.S. Internet Usage for January 2011 (Home & Work)
Metrics	Current Month	Previous Month	% Change
Sessions/Visits per Person	59	57	3.5%
Domains Visited per Person	99	94	5.3%
Web Page Views per Person	2,750	2,656	3.5%
PC Time per Person	61:27:19	55:53:03	10.0%
Duration of a Web Page viewed	0:00:58	0:00:55	3.9%
Active Digital Media Universe	197,842,270	198,595,819	-0.4%
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate	242,999,000	240,813,000	0.9%
Source: The Nielsen Company

Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider. Example: An estimated 6.4 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 65.7 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

Note: MegaView Search data – including total searches, unique searchers, search share, and all other search figures – cannot be trended with search results prior to October 2009 due to recent methodology changes.

Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider. Example: An estimated 6.0 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 65.2 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

Note: MegaView Search data – including total searches, unique searchers, search share, and all other search figures – cannot be trended with search results prior to October 2009 due to recent methodology changes.

Updated April 2010

Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider. Example: An estimated 6.8 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 66.3 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

MegaView Search data – including total searches, unique searchers, search share, and all other search figures – cannot be trended with search results prior to October 2009 due to recent methodology changes.

Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider. Example:  An estimated 6.7 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 67.3 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

*November and December U.S. search figures reflect dictionary changes

MegaView Search data – including total searches, unique searchers, search share, and all other search figures – cannot be trended with search results prior to October 2009 due to recent methodology changes.

Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider. Example:  An estimated 6.5 billion search queries were conducted at Google Search, representing 65.4 percent of all search queries conducted during the given time period.

Example:  The data indicates that 62.1 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Wikimedia Foundation-owned sites or launched a Wikimedia Foundation-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 17 minutes and 7 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division. The brand level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.

Quarter-over-Quarter Growth in Online Display Ad Spend by U.S. Consumer Goods Industry

“While direct response advertising has been very successful on the Internet, with categories like finance and travel devoting a significant portion of their budget to online advertising, on-line advertising will not continue to grow as rapidly without major brands beginning to devote larger portions of their ad budgets to the Web.  We are seeing some of that happen now with Consumer Packaged Goods companies, which are growing their budgets despite a down economy,” said David Wiesenfeld, vice president, online marketing solutions at Nielsen.

YouTube was the top entertainment web site for consumer product companies in 2009, with 637.7 million display ad impressions and a 24 percent share of all advertising in the genre.  AOL.com and Oprah.com rounded out the top three.  YouTube was also the fastest growing site among the top 10, increasing 572 percent year-over-year.

Read the full release regarding consumer product online display ads here.

Top 10 Search Providers for May 2009 (U.S.) 

 * A year-over-year comparison is not possible because of a definitional change to Yellow Pages Search.

Google topped the list of top 10 web brands, with a unique audience of 131.2 million.  Yahoo! took second place, with a unique audience of 118.9 million, followed by MSN/Windows Live at 101.5 million. 

Read the full press release here.

AOL: It Has Staying Power

During the dot.com era the AOL brand was synonymous with the Web for many users and was known for its dial-up access. Now that most users have transitioned to broadband access, AOL has made a name for itself through its media network that includes sites like TMZ. In April 2009, AOL LLC had 86.8 million unique visitors, making it the No. 4 online parent company, reaching 52 percent of the active Internet universe. Among the top 10 parent companies, AOL was No. 1 when ranked by average time spent per person, with 3 hours and 45 minutes.

Globally, the AOL parent company ranked No. 6 in April, with 132.2 million unique visitors.

Top 10 Parent Companies Ranked by Unique Audience for April 2009 (U.S., Home and Work)

Source: Nielsen NetView

Top 10 Global* Parent Companies Ranked by Unique Audience for April 2009 (Home and Work)

*Global Data takes into account the following countries: U.S., U.K., Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and Japan
Source: Nielsen NetView