The market currently relies heavily on visitors and page views to measure performance, but we know these metrics can be gamed.

Time, on the other hand, is finite and selfishly managed by the user making it harder to game. Therefore if a site can garner more of an individual’s time it should be considered a good thing, right?

With that said, we know there are exceptions (Search for example), which is why we haven’t presented Attention as the king of all metrics. We see Attention as an additional piece of the puzzle.

For example:

• MySpace attracted 16% of all pageviews on the internet (U.S.) in December
• However, U.S. users only spent 11.9% of their time on MySpace
• MySpace provides a service valued by consumers (11.9% Attention Share), but the site is terribly designed and thus inflates misleading engagement metrics like pageviews

The following are the top 20 domains that captured our Attention in January 2007:

Key observations:

• As expected, shopping/commerce sites captured less Attention in January:
  • Craigslist was the only shopping/classifieds site in the top-20 to gain Attention Share
  • Amazon.com fell 4 positions - its Attention Share decreased from 0.67% to 0.46%
  • Walmart.com dropped off the Top-20 list
  • Ebay.com’s Attention Share decreased as well, but not as much as the other shopping sites on the list. Perhaps people were looking to unload some of the stuff they accumulated over the holiday season. This theory could also explain Craigslist’s gain.
• Bankofamerica.com fell. People checking (and re-checking) their bank balance as they spent their hard earned cash in December?
• Adultfriendfinder.com gained - New Year’s Resolutions related? We know post-Christmas time is a seasonally strong time for online personals.
• Who is new on this list? (compared to Dec ‘06):
  • Runescape.com - #21 in Dec
  • Comcast.net - #22 in Dec
• Who is absent? (compared to Dec ‘06):
  • Neopets.com - #18 in Dec / #22 in Jan
  • Walmart.com - #16 in Dec / #28 in Jan

Analyze more domains: + +

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