The latest comScore Networks report states that total Internet spending reached
$143.2 billion for the full year 2005, an increase of 22 percent from 2004. What’s more, comScore Networks chairman Gian Fulgoni is quoted as saying: “It’s clear
based on what we’re seeing so far in 2006 that the strength in online sales will not wane
anytime soon.”
Yahoo continues to be the top Web property, with 127 million unique visitors in December
to its sites. MSN-Microsoft registered 116 M uniques, Time-Warner about the same, while
Google was 4th with 93 M. Others in the top 10 were: eBay, Amazon, Ask Jeeves, Wal-Mart, Viacom
Online, NY Times Digital. MySpace just missed out on the top 10, coming in at number
11 with 32 million uniques in December.
One thing that caught my eye: Wikipedia came in at number 37 with 17 M uniques – the only non-commercial
site to make the top 50. On the other side of the coin — retail sites such as Wal-Mart
and Best Buy performed strongly in December, due to holiday purchases. Of course, these
numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt (someone always pipes up in the comments
about the accuracy of this type of data, but I always say – well show me better data
then!).
Current Alexa data tells a similar story: Yahoo number 1, MSN-Microsoft number 2,
Google number 3. AOL, Time-Warner’s biggest Web property, is number
21. Which indicates that Time-Warner has a diverse set of big Web
properties, as they’re number 3 in comScore’s list.
