Total Time Spent Online is Up 24.3%
Written by Jay Meattle (contact - e-mail) -- November 29th, 2007 | Share - Save - E-mailIs it a good time to be long-term bullish on the Internet? Take a look at the chart below -
We are spending more and more time consuming information online. Logically, since time is finite online advertising spend should follow a similar trajectory with marketers allocating their ad budgets in proportion to where people are spending their time.
Needless to say, this is a time of considerable opportunity for online media properties and online marketers!
Jay loves creating, technology and innovation. Find out more here.
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November 30th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
Jay:
Interesting juxtaposition – I just put up a post about Word-of-Mouth ad spending – projected to be up 35% next year:
http://humanvoice.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/word-of-mouth-ad-spending-up-359/
Tom O’B
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:49 am
I spend much more time online, reading stories (my entertainment) on sites rather than reading books or mags. I can more easily find info, and try any game that I feel like on that day, rather than buying a game for $50 and then getting tired of it. Many sites such as http://www.fanfiction.net (stories) or http://www.justexpressing.com (stories, forum, games)
December 26th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Your conclusion about ad spending may be correct, but is not supported by you data.
First of all, it’s not clear exactly what you’re measuring. You say “We’re spending more time online” but the corner of the graph (btw, source?) says “US online population.” Online population is not the same as time spent online.
Secondly, even if the graph is showing time rather than population, we do not know if the time spent online is decreasing the time spent consuming other ad-supported media (e.g. television, newspapers) or time spent consuming consumer-supported media (e.g. books, single player computer games).
If the graph is measuring the number of people (as I suspect) then the conclusion about the movement of advertising dollars has more merit. In fact, as someone with a modicum of experience in the advertising industry, I can say that they care more about how may people are reading a newspaper or watching a television show, rather than how long they spend doing it.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:51 am
@Khabalox -
* data represents U.S. online behavior – not global. Hence the “US online population” note on the chart.
* Source for this data is Compete, Inc. Details about the methodology and company can be found here: http://www.compete.com/help#snp1
* Since time is a finite quantity (each of us only has 24 hours a day – I wish I had more!), the assumption is that if one is spending more time online, one has to be spending less time doing other things. It would be interesting to dive deeper and investigate what channels are losing the U.S. consumer’s attention.
* Graph is measuring Total Time Spent Online by the U.S. online population. Anecdotally I know # of people online in the U.S. is also up during the same period — but I believe not as much as time spent per person online. More people are online, and on average each person is spending more time online.
* You raise the age old question about quantity vs. quality :) I like to think advertisers are ultimately driven by revenue and profits , and I think a more engaged audience is more likely to be more profitable — granted that however engaged an audience (depth) might be, one still needs volume (or reach).
* Increase in time spent online also means that advertisers have a bigger window of opportunity to reach their target segment online, more often.
Hope this was useful and cleared up some of your questions. Thanks for using Compete!
January 6th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Yay. That’s exactly what we want on the internet: more ads.
Thanks, but no thanks.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
as long as i can keep using adblock i don’t care how much advertising you do online.
January 15th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I blame Stumble Upon, which lead me here too :p
January 18th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions. There is NO way to gage time spent online, there are too many variables. Besides, your results can only be as accurate as the base you took them from. If you only monitored 4,000 IPs, that’s hardly representative of the total population. Statistics are BS and can NEVER accurately measure…..well much of anything.
January 18th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Stumble, how I hate you :{D I have internet marketing exam in 12 dayes and this thing looked like a nice extra info for some extra point’s but in the end i got only confused, and decided to lie to my examiner that these data are 100% true.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
What is the key to the right? Websites visited per day? hours per week? Hours per month? Average minutes per day? New porn sites per day? Number of lost girlfriends per minute? A chart means nothing with out data. Is this a joke?
January 18th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Nowadays, i feel a need to go on the computer everyday. Even when im uterly bored, i still go on the computer. And look at me now, my grades have dropped, my english is becoming worst and worst, and on top of that, i cant score higher than a fiftenhundred on my SATs -.-. I just wish the computer was so addictive.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
No shit the total time goes up… the longer you live, the more time adds up.
February 20th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
thing is the connections got very fast, and a lot ppl keep their comps on-line day-after-day.
May 29th, 2008 at 5:59 am
What’s the scale on the right? Minutes per day? Per person? Without this the graph doesn’t really say much.
December 13th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Very interesting…
From my own experience, I find that the only internet marketing that works is google
January 22nd, 2009 at 9:06 pm
The usage of internet is increasing especially in young generations. As all teens, my son spent too much time surfing the web (rather serious problem for parents nowadays). I tried to tell my 15 years old son not to spend all day on his email account but you know how they are. I decided to use ez internet timer and it works perfectly. I scheduled to turn it off when I want it to and now I am relieved.
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