Report: Home Usage Heats Up for Summer

People seem to be spending more of their leisure time surfing the Net instead of the waves this summer. Media Metrix reported home Web usage is up 15% from June to July.

The company’s latest research revealed that home usage grew from 3.5 hours in June to 4 hours in July. Time spent using the Web at work stayed the same, however, with June and July usage measuring 6 hours on average, according to Media Metrix.

Both the at-home and at-work usage stats reflected the continued dominance of America Online and Yahoo! For the month of July, the top three destinations for home users were the AOL.com, Yahoo!, and Microsoft sites. Those at work chose Yahoo!, Netscape and AOL.com, according to MediaMetrix.

Lycos figured in the home user top ten list three times with its new acquisition angelfire.com ranking number eight, followed by Lycos.com, and then Lycos-owned Tripod in the number ten slot.

MediaMetrix also made note of Lycos’ acquisition of WhoWhere? and said the company’s “property” reach grew from 24.5% to 32.3% for at-home Netizens. The number of workers accessing Lycos properties also grew from 28.2% to 32.5% for the month of July.

For a closer look at Lycos’ value per user as measured by Mecklermedia’s WEBDEX, WebSite Value Index, check out Steve Harmon’s analysis in Internet Stock Report today.