Nearly 46 million Americans accessed the Web at work during August 2002, representing a 17 percent increase over the same time last year, Nielsen//NetRatings revealed.
According to hour-by-hour analysis from Nielsen//NetRatings, online usage at-work begins at 8 a.m. and tailors off around 4 p.m., with peak hours between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., and overall usage climbing to 86 percent. In contrast, the primetime hours of surfing at-home increase in the afternoon and hit a peak at 8 p.m., reaching 58 percent of Web usage.
Measurement analysis indicated that female office workers were the primary drivers of traffic growth, as the group grew 23 percent year-over-year to 20.4 million.
Men still outnumber women online, but their growth rate is slower. The number of men logging onto the Internet from work rose 12 percent since last August, increasing to nearly 25.3 million surfers. Men also spent more time, accessed more sessions and viewed more pages than women. Men averaged nearly 31 hours time spent in August, as compared to nearly 27 hours for female office workers. They initiated an average of 54 sessions a month, compared to 50 for women, while viewing more than 1900 pages. Women accessed fewer than 1700 page views last month.
“While women have long ago surpassed men in online usage at-home, historically the at-work Web population continues to be dominated by male surfers,” Charles Buchwalter, vice president of client analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. “Last year, men comprised nearly 58 percent of the total at-work Web population, but female office workers are making some headway with their growth surge.”
The top parent companies and brands that were accessed by Internet users during August 2002 revealed an interesting mix of portals, e-commerce, search engines, and news:
| Top 10 Parent Companies of August 2002 Combined Home & Work |
|||
| Rank | Parent | Unique Audience (000) |
Time per Person (hr:min:sec) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Microsoft | 86,251 | 1:37:00 |
| 2. | AOL Time Warner | 82,159 | 0:56:52 |
| 3. | Yahoo! | 78,427 | 2:16:23 |
| 4. | U.S. Government | 36,935 | 0:24:38 |
| 5. | Terra Lycos | 35,555 | 0:21:41 |
| 6. | 33,929 | 0:26:39 | |
| 7. | Amazon | 32,648 | 0:18:04 |
| 8. | About-Primedia | 32,586 | 0:17:16 |
| 9. | eBay | 30,490 | 1:54:52 |
| 10. | USA Network | 26,011 | 0:24:40 |
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings | |||
| Top 10 Brands of August 2002 Combined Home & Work |
|||
| Rank | Brand | Unique Audience (000) |
Time per Person (hr:min:sec) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Yahoo! | 78,427 | 2:16:22 |
| 2. | MSN | 73,854 | 1:37:32 |
| 3. | Microsoft | 70,109 | 0:16:34 |
| 4. | AOL | 60,475 | 0:35:31 |
| 5. | 33,929 | 0:26:39 | |
| 6. | Lycos Networks | 32,902 | 0:22:30 |
| 7. | Amazon | 31,807 | 0:15:41 |
| 8. | eBay | 30,398 | 1:54:40 |
| 9. | About Network | 22,469 | 0:16:22 |
| 10. | CNN | 22,103 | 0:28:28 |
| Source: Nielsen//NetRatings | |||
Chart Definitions:
Parent company is a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity.
Brand is a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content.
Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data are expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.
Example: The data indicate that 26.0 million home Internet users visited at least one of the USA Network-owned sites during the week, and each person spent, on average, a total of 24 minutes and 40 seconds at one or more of their sites.
Notes: Rankings are based on audience measurement of people who have access to the Internet at-home and at-work. Work rankings are based on persons at work who have access to a non-shared personal computer. Rankings are based on Internet traffic to Web sites and do not include proprietary services.
