CenterNetworks reported yesterday on the launch of the new TotalWeb tracking service from Nielsen, which includes mobile traffic along with desktop PC traffic in its measurement of top Internet properties. When including mobile traffic, says Nielsen, top Internet sites can extend their reach an average of 13%. Though TotalWeb only covers about “200 leading Internet sites” (ironic for a product called TotalWeb), the data is nonetheless interesting.
“The data demonstrate that the mobile Internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a website, but also grow the overall size of the pie,” said Jeff Herrmann, Vice President of Mobile Media, Nielsen Mobile in a press release. According to Nielsen, leading sites with a mobile property could increase the size of their audience via the mobile Internet.
Nielsen breaks the data down into categories, which is really the most interesting part of their report because it indicates what sort of properties are currently the most popular on the mobile web. The biggest benefactors of mobile were weather and entertainment, categories that each saw a 22% average audience lift when factoring in mobile sites. As Allen Stern on CenterNetworks notes, though, mapping seems mysteriously absent from Nielsen’s data.