Page views are so passé

IT'S NOT WHAT YOU LOOK AT, it's how long you spend looking at it, is the message from Web measurement outfit Nielsen. The company has added "Total Minutes" and "Total Sessions" to its Netview site measurement service.

Nielsen reckons page views don't reflect the true usage sites like Youtube get, as users spend more time watching clips that they would, for example, reading a news story on The Rogister - assuming they could find one. Streaming audio and video and online gaming sites will now get a fairer crack of the whip, says the company.

Ranking top sites by total minutes instead of page views changes site rankings considerably. By page views alone, AOL would have been sixth in the US in May, but.because time spent using its instant-messaging now gets counted, it now moves into first place with users spending 25 billion minutes there, putting it ahead of Yahoo on 20 billion.

Google drops to fifth when measured by time spent, mainly because it aims to give users quick links for moving on to other sites. By page views alone, Google ranked third. The implications for Web advertising pricing are considerable and far too complex for this old hack to get his head round. µ

L'INQ
Nielsen