STICKY situations.Where do L.A. Web surfers hang out the longest? A new measurement of Internet behavior by Nielsen/NetRatings Inc. provides an interesting look at the online habits of that peculiar tribe of humans: Angelenos. Essentially, Nielsen's "stickiness" measure determines how much time users spend at a particular site. And a look at the L.A. numbers confirms what most of us already know: Angelenos are always in a hurry. "L.A. suffers are interested in using Internet sites to do a kind of one-stop shopping that allows them to access e-mail, get news and information, and maybe do some shopping," said Nielsen/NetRatings analyst Betty Cho. "They're interested in simplifying their lives and doing so at one, trusted source." While auction site eBay.com heads the list, L.A.'s Top 10 Web destinations are dominated by portals Yahoo, Compuserve, MSN (1) (MicroSoft Network) A family of Internet-based services from Microsoft, which includes a search engine, e-mail (Hotmail), instant messaging (Windows Live Messaging) and a general-purpose portal with news, information and shopping (MSN Directory). , America Online See AOL. and AltaVista. Sweepstakes site iWon.com also soaks up a lot of our online time. Elsewhere in the nation, suffers stick mostly to sweepstakes and gaming sites like BigPrizes.com, FreeRide
Here's a look at the favorite sites of L.A. Web suffers, as measured in November. Yahoo.com Headquarters: Santa Clara Santa Clara, city, Cuba Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba. Average Time Spent: 1 hour, 9 minutes Unique Visitors A count of how many different people access a Web site. For example, if a user leaves and comes back to the site five times during the measurement period, that person is counted as one unique visitor, but would count as five "user sessions. in L.A.: 2.5 million The portal of choice for most Americans may be slipping in terms of stickiness, owing to owing to prep. Because of; on account of: I couldn't attend, owing to illness. owing to prep → debido a, por causa de the growing popularity of sweepstakes sites like iWon. That's what seems to be happening in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. . Rumors abound that Yahoo may even start charging for premium content. The site is attractive to locals, who like having their e-mail, finances, and news and information at one site. Yahoo is one of the few Web players operating in the black, and it still draws the largest crowd of Angelenos. But the average L.A. visitor doesn't hang around as long there as they do on eBay and iWon. Monster.com Headquarters: Maynard, Mass. Average Time Spent: 42 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 227,000 Job-search site Monster out-stickies all of its rivals, especially in L.A., where looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. new job opportunities is a popular pastime in the rapidly changing economy. But it's hard to say whether recruiters or actual job searchers are sticking around the most at the site. iWon.com Headquarters: Irvington, N.Y. Average Time Spent: 1 hour, 16 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 366,000 Free money. It's irresistible to materialistic Angelenos. The idea behind iWon is to be a Yahoo-like portal while giving away cash. Lots of it. iWon gives away about $30 million in prize money a year. To qualify, visitors must register, which enables advertisers to target them with ads. CompuServe.com Headquarters: Columbus, Ohio Columbus is the capital and the largest city of the American state of Ohio. Named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. Average Time Spent: 1 hour Unique Visitors in L.A: 258,000 CompuServe markets itself as "the portal for time-constrained adults with professional careers, advanced education and high incomes who want a reliable and practical Internet service to call their own." Does that describe Angelenos or what? CompuServe offers subscribers Internet access See how to access the Internet. along with forums, business and professional content, news, databases, email, and instant messaging. The company is experiencing a rebirth following its 1998 acquisition by AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. , which is aggressively marketing it as a value brand for more sophisticated users. eBay.com Headquarters: San Jose Average Time Spent: 1 hour, 43 minutes Unique Visitors in LA.: 628,000 No surprise here. Online auction service eBay pretty much requires bidders to spend a lot of time tracking bids. A cyberforum for selling nearly 4,500 categories of merchandise, from used undergarments to BMWs, eBay is expanding rapidly. Interestingly, the site didn't even make the national Top 10, suggesting Angelenos might see it as a way to avoid traffic hassles and overpriced o·ver·price tr.v. o·ver·priced, o·ver·pric·ing, o·ver·pric·es To put too high a price or value on. overpriced Adjective costing more than it is thought to be worth Adj. stores. MSN.com Headquarters: Seattle Average Time Spent: 39 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 1.8 million Angelenos like their portals, and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN offers it all - personalized news, shopping, Hotmail, gaming, gossip, career services and the ever-popular love and relationships link. AltaVista.com Headquarters: Palo Alto Average Time Spent: 37 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 497,000 Like its portal competitors, AltaVista offers a search engine, chat rooms, instant messaging and online shopping that have proved tempting to L.A. surfers. After jumping into the portal wars last year, AltaVista this year has announced a return to its technology and search engine roots by discontinuing its free Internet access. CNN.com Headquarters: Atlanta Average Time Spent: 32 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 281,000 The November election fiasco was a boon for the CNN CNN or Cable News Network Subsidiary company of Turner Broadcasting Systems. It was created by Ted Turner in 1980 to present 24-hour live news broadcasts, using satellites to transmit reports from news bureaus around the world. site, especially among L.A. users. Locals had their eyeballs fixed to the news portal, waiting for the answer that would not come until mid-December. CNN clobbered the New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times' and L.A. Times' Web sites in terms of stickiness that month. WellsFargo.com Headquarters: San Francisco Average Time Spent: 31 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 281,000 Money is close to the hearts of virtually all Angelenos, and the stagecoach stagecoach, heavy, closed vehicle on wheels, usually drawn by horses, formerly used to transport passengers and goods overland. Throughout the Middle Ages and until about the end of the 18th cent. lures L.A. customers to its user-friendly online banking site with an array of financial management tools. And Wells Fargo, the seventh-largest bank in the United States, has been aggressively ramping up its Internet banking effort. AOL.com Headquarters: Dulles, Va. Average Time Spent: 30 minutes Unique Visitors in L.A.: 2.5 million AOL bolsters its Web presence through its Instant Messenger, Digital City and AOL MovieFone properties. Once fully merged with Time Warner, AOL promises to become all things media, making the site even more attractive to L.A.'s one-stop surfers. |
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