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.

Example:  The data indicates that 60.4 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Amazon-owned sites or launched an Amazon-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 22 minutes and 44 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.

Looking at our newly expanded panel that includes more than 30,000 sites, we have found that short tail sites (those with a greater than 1 percent reach) remain the most engaging brands online.

It seems that the differentiation between the long tail and short tail is important. Long tail sites tend to have lower engagement levels than short tail sites.

However, it would be reasonable to ask: “well, since not all short tail sites are the same, what happens to those numbers if you remove portals and large social networks?” The answer is interesting. When we look at the data in relation to the highest traffic sites on the Web (e.g., Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Apple and Facebook) here’s what happens:

Long tail sites tend to have lower engagement levels than short tail sites; however, the largest jump isn’t between long tail and short tail, it is really between everyone and the top 10 sites.

What does this amount to? As much as anyone thinks the future is in the long tail, it’s just not the case-at least not yet. In fact, consumers feel more comfortable on large, mass media sites. We know the Internet is changing. We know there are more blogs, boards, tweets and social networks than ever before. But what’s also clear is that while the Internet itself is fragmenting (like all other media), people continue to spend their time on the sites that offer them the most options and functionality.

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.

Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)

 Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising. 

YouTube was far and away the top online destination by video streams, with more than 6 billion total streams during the month, and more than 95 million unique viewers. Hulu, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media and ABC.com rounded out the top five.

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.

YouTube, hulu, and Yahoo! were the top three sites for streaming video, serving up more than 6 billion video streams among them.

Google searches accounted for 63.5 percent of all Web searches with nearly 5.4 billion queries. Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com continued to round out the top five.

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

CareerBuilder Network was the top destination with 20.8 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! HotJobs and Monster, with 11.7 million and 9.5 million unique visitors, respectively.  Among age groups, the number of unique visitors to career development web sites age 65 and older increased 41 percent year-over-year to 3.6 million.

“With the current unstable economy and rising unemployement rate, more people are heading online to search for jobs.  While 65 used to be considered the age when most people retired, we are seeing a trend toward later retirement or partial retirement.  There’s an opportunity for publishers and advertisers to appeal to this niche by providing content that’s relevant to longtime career holders,” said Chuck Schilling, research director, agency & media, Nielsen Online.

To read the complete press release containing more detailed information about these trends, as well as January 2009 data for the top 10 web brands and average U.S. Internet usage, click here.