Jeffbullas’s Blog

The study on online activity titled the “Internet Activity Index” released by  the Online Publishers Association shows the  trends of the types of activity that have ocurred on the Internet over the past 6 years. The study’s findings has important implications for online marketers and how they should be focusing their time, resources and strategies in 2009 and beyond.

5 Key findings of the study

1. Internet users continue to spend a majority of their “time” with Content sites, up from 34 percent of total time spent in 2003 to 42 percent in 2009, a 24 percent increase
2. Emergence of Community (it wasn’t measured in 2003 as it wasn’t statistically significant enough and not on the radar)
3. Content is still king; the content rich sites continue to be a place where consumers spend the majority of their online time and provide an environment for brand marketers to reach and engage with consumers despite the emergence of community sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace
4. Community sites are reducing the share of online time by communications sites due to community sites ability to offer the same activities such as email and instant messaging more efficiently
5. Time spent with Search doubled

While some of these categories share common elements – for instance, there are strong community aspects to many News, Sports and other content sites -- it has become clear that each of these areas has very distinct characteristics, leading to a natural and healthy segmentation of the marketplace. By tracking share of time spent on each activity, the Index provides a benchmark for charting the relative impact of changing market dynamics on these segments as the medium matures.

  View the electronic version of 'Historical Internet Activity Index'.