December 28, 2006

Yahoo! Answers Captures 96% of Q and A Market Share

Search Engine Land had an interesting post about question and answer sites today that linked to a thorough reviewfrom MIT Technology Review of six of these sites. Yahoo! Answers was the clear winner, which is can partly be attributed to its sheer volume of users. I created a custom category of the six sites mentioned in the post, and found that for the week ending 12/23/06, the market share of visits to Yahoo! Answers was 47X greater than the share of visits to its nearest competitor, Answerbag. Two of its competitors, Askville and Yedda, were in the gray, meaning we don't have statistically significant data on them. This is the network effect in action, and the Technology Review article demonstrates it - the reviewer found more and better answers to his questions on Yahoo! Answers because of the volume of users on the site.

A few other facts in the Hitwise data on Yahoo! Answers:

• For the week ending 12/23/06, it ranked as the 100th most visited domain among the 500,000+ websites tracked by Hitwise. It ranked as the #2 site in the Education - Reference category, receiving about 1/5 of the share of visits to the #1 site, Wikipedia.

• Slightly more than half (52%) of visitors to Yahoo! Answers were female for the four weeks ending 12/23/06. 22% were between 18 and 24, slightly less than Wikipedia's 27% of 18-24 year olds.

• Yahoo! Answers received 53% of its traffic from search engines for the week ending 12/23/06. This was almost evenly split between Yahoo! Search, with 28% of upstream traffic, and Google, with 23% of upstream traffic. This means that Google is indexing Yahoo! Answers content, and is probably almost as effective at driving traffic as Yahoo! placement of Answers content on the bottom of the search page.

• Like most Web 2.0 sites, Yahoo! Answers is optimized for the long tail, and the search terms driving traffic to the site reflect this. In the four-week period ending 12/23/06, Hitwise captured 42,087 search terms sending visits to Yahoo! Answers. The leading term 'yahoo answers' only captured 0.59% of the volume of its searches. In comparison, Wikipedia, another long tail site, received 3% of its search term volume from its leading navigational terms. Here are some of the terms that drove traffic to Yahoo! Answers in the past 4 weeks: 'smith sisters murdered anonymously,' 'dealing with regrets from the past,' and 'christmas party games.'

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 05:27 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Education

Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati

When Google Blog Search launched last year, I wondered if it would surpass Technorati in market share of visits. This week Hitwise data show that the market share of visits to Google Blog Search surpassed visits to Technorati for the week ending 12/23/06. Google Blog Search began catching up to Technorati in October, when Google placed a link to Blog Search on the Google News home page, causing a 168% surge in market share for Google Blog Search over a two week period (week ending 10/14/06 vs. week ending 10/28/06). Since then, approximately 60% of Google Blog Search's traffic has been coming directly from Google News, compared to less than 1% before the change. Blogger Blog Search has been receiving about the same amount of traffic as Technorati, although it has dropped since Google Blog Search took off. Sphere, another blog search service, is still small, but growing.

Last week (week ending 12/23/06) visits to Google Blog Search experienced an increase of 14%, but the percentage of upstream traffic from Google News dropped. The chart below shows an increase in upstream traffic from Google, and that Google Images, Google Video and Google Groups showed up out of nowhere as top ten sources of traffic for Google Blog Search. I believe this increased traffic is due to the prominent placement of "Blogs" in the "more>>" box shown in the screen shot below.

The Google home page and SERP have always been the key distribution point for Google's other services, as we have shown before in the case of Google Book Search and Google Video. I have often wondered how people who don't read the industry press find out about Google's growing array of services, including Finance, Calendar, and Base. It seems to me that Google's delay in promoting its new services can prevent those services from being formidable competitors in their respective verticals, because only the geekiest folks know about them. What's the point of putting the sharpest engineers on projects to build the sharpest web tools, only to have them flounder on Google's ever-expanding product page? In the case of Google Blog Search, maybe waiting wasn't such a bad idea, as it did receive poor reviews when it was first released.

Hitwise Demographic data show that Google Blog Search has attracted a younger audience than Technorati. Only 10% of visitors to Technorati were in the 18-24 age group, while 34% of visitors to Google Blog Search reached that tech-savvy group. What's interesting about Google Blog Search's younger skew is that Google News, like most general news sites, skews older, with only 15% of its visitors in the 18-24 group. This could indicate that the younger users of Google News are much more likely to click on the "search blogs" link than the older users. In contrast, Technorati has been doing very well with the 45 and up web users. Both sites skew male, with 55% of Technorati visitors and 61% of visitors to Google Blog Search.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 09:18 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack (4)
Posted to Blogs and Personal Websites

December 21, 2006

On Entering a New Age Group

This weekend I will officially enter a new age group, according to Hitwise demographic age breaks. Using our reverse demographic search tool, I decided to take a look and see how my online habits will change based on leaving the 25-34 group and entering the 35-44 group.

What surprised me the most was how much I was missing of web activity for the typical 25-34 year old woman. According to a 2002 study by the National Center for Health Statistics, the average age of a woman having her first baby is 25. Thus it should not be surprising that the Internet activity of many 25-34 year olds is related to pregnancy, babies, and small children, and that 35-44 year olds would be likely to be conducting activity related to tweens and teens. In the table below, I've listed some of the top sites visited by each age group. In Hitwise, I went to Find > Websites by Demographic Composition and selected the age group and category of sites I wanted to look at.

A definite shift is noticeable between the two groups for Apparel, House & Garden, Food & Beverage, and Women's Sites in regards to age of children. In the past year I should have shifted from babystyle to Abercrombie Kids, Pottery Barn Kids to PB teen, and Gerber to Pringles. Even my vacation destinations should have shifted from the couples-only Sandals Resorts to local destinations where I can take the whole family.

Since I have no children or any on the way, I guess I should give up the Goth lifestyle for a pet, leave the trashy Perez Hilton and lightweight Daily Candy behind and start reading the more serious Consumerist and join BlogHer. I will toss my funky Z Gallerie furniture for more traditional pieces from Lane. I will probably not ever visit the Van Halen News Desk or Kiss Online, but happily switch the Bud for Jack Daniels as I think Fertile Thoughts.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 07:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Audience

December 20, 2006

Pandora Visits up Six Fold in Past Year, Surpasses Last.fm

I've been using Pandora, the "music discovery service" powered by the Music Genome Project, on and off during the past year and today took a look at how it compares against a similar service, Last.fm. Pandora allows you to create radio stations based on your artist and song preferences and plays music you may not have heard based on those preferences. While it has some social networking features, Last.fm has more robust social features, and has a downloadable application for playing music. The market share of US visits to Pandora increased by 634% from November 2005 to November 2006, while the market share of visits to the Last.fm website (not including use of the application) increased by 172% in the same period. For the week ending December 16, 2006, Pandora and Last.fm ranked at number 8 and 9 respectively in the Hitwise Entertainment - Radio category.

While both sites are ad-supported, they also link to Amazon for music retail. Last.fm appears to be generating more interest in purchases, as 6.35% of its downstream traffic for the week ending December 16, 2006 went to Amazon, compared to only 0.58% of Pandora's downstream that went to Amazon.

There are also differences in the demographics of users of the sites: visitors to Pandora are 51% female/49% males, while Last.fm users skew slightly more female at 56% female/44% male. Last.fm users are also younger than Pandora users, with 57% of its users in the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups, which makes sense given its social networking focus. Pandora users more generally resemble the online population, with 25-34 and 35-44 year olds taking 25% each of its visitors. I think that somehow a name like the Music Genome Project has an appeal to GenXers like myself who are not as interested in networking with new people for music recommendations - I like the idea of leaving it up to 'scientific' research to determine what I should listen to, even though sometimes it can be way off base.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Entertainment

December 15, 2006

Zune vs iPod - The Story in the Data

Since the launch of the Zune less than a month ago, I've been curious to see how Microsoft's new mp3 player compares against the iPod.

A chart of search volume for 'ipod' and 'zune' shows that the share of searches for 'ipod' was 3X greater than the share of searches for 'zune' for the week ending 12/9/06. Not bad for a product that's only been on shelves for three weeks.

But how are people searching for 'zune' versus 'ipod' and what does that tell us? The Hitwise Search Term Suggestion report for the two products shows an enormous delta in related terms - there were over 9,062 search terms captured by Hitwise containing 'ipod' in the last 4 weeks, compared to 666 for 'zune.' Certainly, iPod has several years behind it, and a complete line of products and accessories. However, three of the top 10 search terms containing 'zune' are looking for reviews or iPod comparisons, which would be expected for a new product.

The sites that people go to after conducting a search give another indication of consumer mindset (i.e., John Battelle's Database of Intentions). Search term analysis for 'zune' shows that people are more likely to be looking for information on the Zune than going to a retail site to purchase it, with only three retailers in the list of top 10 terms receiving traffic from 'zune.' In contrast, nine of the top 10 sites receiving traffic from 'ipod' were retail sites. Another unique Hitwise feature that can be used to determine the interest in a product is the ability to chart a term's share of searches in terms of visits sent to sites within a specific category. Charting the share of searches that 'ipod' and 'zune' sent to the Shopping & Classifieds category revealed that last week 'ipod' sent 10X more visits to Shopping & Classifieds category than 'zune' - certainly not as positive as our 3X number above.

The search term data show us that if it is possible to unseat a product with such a dominant market share as the iPod, it will be a long slow road. People are slowly checking out the Zune, reading reviews, and seeing what other people think before they make the leap. Its social networking features will need a signficant amount of time to gain hold. After all, it took MySpace over a year to rise to dominance, not just one month.

Another metric worth looking at is Demographics. By examining the demographics of the iTunes website versus Zune.net is our best indication of who us already using the iPod versus who is considering purchasing a Zune. The first thing that pops out is that visitors to the iTunes site are more likely to be female, while visitors to Zune.net are more likely to be male. Not surprising, as males are typically early adopters. The difference in age groups shows that iTunes users are strongest in the 25-44 age groups, while Zune.net is attracting more 18-24 year olds and 45-54 year olds. It makes sense that young males would be checking out the Zune, but what about 45-54 year olds? Are they older geeks (early adopters too), or parents of teens?

While Zune has generated a good deal of interest, it's not going to unseat the iPod this holiday season. After the Christmas, we will be able to look at the software registration and download sites as we did last year to see how the iPod fared against the Zune.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 12:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Shopping and Classifieds

December 12, 2006

Toys R Us Online Store Takes 22% Share of Category

Until July of this year, Toys R Us online retail was hosted at Amazon.com, leaving ToysRUs.com to serve as little more than a store locator and source for corporate information. Now that it's the peak season for online toy shopping, it's a good time take a look at the effects of the new ToyRUs.com retail site on online toy shopping this holiday season.

Using Hitwise Charting, it's easy to figure out how ToysRus.com is doing against its competitors by running a series of four charts.

1. Market Share
During the 2005 Holiday season, ToysRus.com was competing neck and neck with KBToys.com and eToys for market share, all with less than 4% category share. In July, when ToysRUs.com ecommerce functionality went live, its market share of visits skyrocketed, and last week (week ending 12/9/06), it was the #1 site in the Toys & Hobbies category with market share of a whopping 22%.

2. Clickstream
Since ToysRUs.com was partnered with Amazon.com for retail, it follows that most of the downstream traffic leaving ToysRus.com would go to Amazon.com. Running a chart of downstream to Amazon shows us that this was indeed true - over 50% of the traffic leaving ToysRus.com went to Amazon.com. When ToysRUs.com became a retail site, the downstream to Amazon.com dropped to around 3%, which is typical competitive traffic for an online retailer. What's interesting about this chart is that the downstream from eToys and KBToys.com to Amazon.com dropped as well - it seems that as soon as users figured out that ToysRus.com was now a retail site, they were less likely to go to Amazon.com to look for toys.

3. Session Time
Last week the average visit length to the Toys & Hobbies category was nearly 11 minutes. During the 2005 holiday season, the session time for ToysRUs.com hovered around 2-3 minutes, while visits to competitors' sites lasted upwards of 9 minutes. Apparently ToysRus.com has built a site that is much stickier than competitive sites, as last week's average visit was longer than 12 minutes, while KBToys.com and eToys.com average visits were under 9 minutes each.

4. Search
Charting share of searches can offer insights into brand popularity. In this case, I charted the top navigational search term sending traffic to each of the three toy sites. It turns out that searches for 'toys r us' have always far exceeded searches for 'kb toys' and 'etoys.' This demonstrates the strength of the Toy R Us brand, and offers clues as to why Toys R Us went through the effort of building its own online retail infrastructure. Clearly consumers expected to find a ToyRUS.com retail site, even though products had been sold through Amazon for years. Also notice the significant growth in searches during the the holiday season - Toys R US is definitely top of mind during the Christmas shopping rush.

Postscript: Google Checkout
Two weeks ago I reported that ToysRUs.com was the leading site sending traffic to Google Checkout, accounting for 24% of Google Checkout's upstream visits. For the week ending 12/9/06, it was virtually unchanged at 23% of upstream for Google Checkout. Looking at it another way, 3.5% of the traffic leaving ToysRUs.com went directly to Google Checkout, giving an indication of the conversion rate for ToysRus.com.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 05:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Shopping and Classifieds

December 06, 2006

Britney Beats Craig in Search, Celebrity Blog Sites Skyrocket

Last week Britney Spears made headlines with some unfortunate paparazzi photographs, and Internet users flocked online to search for the pictures: the share of searches for 'britney spears' increased by 930% for the week ending 12/2/06 vs. the previous week (week ending 11/25/06) and she ranked as the #5 search term out of the 1.3 million search terms Hitwise captured last week. More searches were performed last week for 'britney spears' than 'mapquest' or 'craigslist,' not to mention all the other keyword phrases people were using to find photographs of the unfortunate incidents that ranked just among the top 500 most popular terms. This puts her well ahead of new pal Paris Hilton and the newly single Pamela Anderson in Internet popularity. Last week searches for 'pamela anderson' increased by 235% percent and searches for 'paris hilton' were up 94%, but interest in these other blondes couldn't come close to interest in the Britney debacle. As an aside, the share of searches for 'craigslist' was up 147% year over year (week ending 12/02/06 vs. week ending 12/03/06), but last week Britney captured a 60% greater share of searches than Craigslist.

Statistics are fun when we talk about celebrity searches, but what does this mean for online businesses? News sites are increasingly bidding on and optimizing for leading news and celebrity terms in order to attract users. Last week news sites received much of the traffic from searches for just Britney's name, as you can see on the table below, but blogs and smaller websites received more of the traffic from the more specific search terms, and experienced significant increases in traffic.

The market share of visits to the Perez Hilton blog, which showed uncensored photographs of Britney, doubled for the week ending 12/2/06 versus 11/25/06. Celebrity blog sites The Superficial and Hollywood Tuna showed market share increases of 197% and 199% percent respectively in the same period. AOL site TMZ also captured a good share of the Britney traffic, but not as much as it received the previous week during the Michael Richards fiasco. Blogs have the advantage over news sites of being able to show uncensored material, and increased traffic could drive value for advertisers: Last week, Helio and iVillage, which advertise on Perez Hilton, received increased traffic from the site at the same time its visits doubled.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 09:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Blogs and Personal Websites | Entertainment | News and Media

December 05, 2006

Baby Alive is Back, Bratz Searches up 64% over Last Year

This week I was surprised to see that 'baby alive' was the #9 product search term sending visits to Shopping & Classifieds sites. It turns out that Baby Alive is back, and in a big way. Searches for the doll that was introduced in 1973 and talks, eats, and even messes up diapers increased by 268% in the past two weeks (week ending 12/2/06 vs. week ending 11/18/06). Searches outnumbered those for 'bratz' and approached 'american girl' in popularity.

As a former doll-loving little girl, I know first-hand how much time and money can be sunk into collecting dolls, as well as purchasing and making clothes and accessories for them. While Baby Alive is geared toward a younger child than some of the other dolls on this list, it's important to note a resurgence in popularity that could shift girls' interests away from other dolls or toys. Visits to the Hasbro Toy Shop were up 128% for the week ending 12/03/06 versus the same week last year, possibly due to interest in Baby Alive.

It's interesting to note on the chart below that searches for 'barbie' and 'bratz' show less of a seasonal trend, while searches for 'american girl' peaked last year during the holiday season. The data show that the share of searches for 'bratz' is up 64% from last year (week ending 12/02/06 vs. 12/03/05) and searches for 'american girl' were also up by 14% in the same period.

Posted by LeeAnn Prescott at 02:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted to Shopping and Classifieds