OCTOBER INTERNET RATINGS FROM NIELSEN//NETRATINGS

Average Time Spent Per Person Online Jumps by 44 Minutes

• The average time spent per person online increased approximately 44 minutes in October, jumping 9.3% to eight hours and 13 minutes per person in October from seven hours and 31 minutes in September. In August the average surfer spent seven hours and 49 minutes online.

• The number of people in U.S. households who went online in October increased by 2.8 million people, marking a 4.3% increase from September. Active Internet users grew to 67.8 million from 65.0 million people in September. The current size of the Internet universe (those who have access from home, but did not necessarily go online) increased by 3.0 million, rising 2.7%. In October there were 113.0 million people with Internet access as compared to 110.0 million in September.
• Both genders were equally represented during the month of October. Males accounted for 50.3% of all Internet users and females made up 49.7% of all surfers. Men, on average, spent eight hours and 58 minutes online, which is almost an hour and a half more than the seven hours and 28 minutes spent by women.

  Large Growth in Visitors to Top 25 Properties
  Major portals/search engines, e-commerce retailers and content providers saw increases in unique visitors to their sites during the month of October. Sites experiencing the highest increases in unique audience are: Xoom, 29.9%; Time Warner, 23.8%; Blue Mountain Arts, 24.2%; Viacom International, 17.9%; Amazon, 16.6%; About.com, 14.8%; InfoSpace, 9.7%; MSN, 9.2%; AOL Websites, 9.0%; and Yahoo!, 8.8%.

  Online Toy Sites Activity
  As the holiday shopping season begins, the top three toy sites each experienced increases of more than 100% in unique visitors during the month of October. KBKids.com jumped 246.3%, ToysRUs.com increased 121.4% and eToys.com gained 110.2% in unique visitors.

Banner with the Highest Click Rate
The most clicked on banner in October was Golden Palace’s ad with a 21.5% click rate as compared to MaMaMedia’s ad, which had the highest click-through rate in September at 13.2%.

	Property	Unique Audience (000)	Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
1.	AOL Websites (NYSE:AOL)	40,391	0:22:43
2.	Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO)	36,808	0:57:18
3.	MSN (NASDAQ:MSFT)	24,775	0:40:30
4.	Lycos Network (NASDAQ: LCOS)	23,754	0:14:03
5.	GO Network (NASDAQ:SEEK)	16,970	0:23:47
6.	Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)	12,106	0:12:54
7.	Excite@Home (NASDAQ:ATHM)	11,972	0:28:56
8.	Time Warner (NYSE:TWX)	11,330	0:13:51
9.	Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN	10,049	0:11:50
10.	Blue Mt. Arts	9,331	0:15:42
11.	AltaVista (NASDAQ:CMGI)	9,270	0:09:59
12.	eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY)	7,527	1:48:41
13.	The Go2Net Network (NASDAQ:GNET)	7,449	0:09:44
14.	Xoom (NASDAQ:XMCM)	6,533	0:10:15
15.	CNET (NASDAQ:CNET)	6,381	0:08:53
16.	LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK)	6,245	0:08:12
17.	Snap	5,712	0:12:55
18.	Real Networks (NASDAQ:RNWK)	5,638	0:04:48
19.	ZDNet (NYSE:ZD)	5,591	0:14:01
20.	About.com (NASDAQ:BOUT)	5,551	0:05:57
21.	Viacom Int'l (NYSE:VIA & VIAB)	5,108	0:13:00
22.	InfoSpace (NASDAQ:INSP)	5,075	0:05:54
23.	Macromedia (NASDAQ:MACR)	5,003	0:09:25
24.	GoTo.com (NASDAQ:GOTO)	4,583	0:03:20
25.	iVillage (NASDAQ:IVIL)	4,443	0:15:17

Example: The data indicate that approximately 4.4 million home Internet users visited at least one of the iVillage-owned sites during the reporting period, and each person spent, on average, a total of 15 minutes and 17 seconds at one or more of their sites.

Notes: Rankings are based on audience measurement of people who have access to the Internet from home. A property is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. Reach is a measure of the total unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data are expressed as the percent of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.

Top advertisers, ranked by banner impressions, are based on data from BannerTrack^SM, Nielsen//NetRatings' syndicated advertising research report. An impression is counted each time an ad banner is fully loaded onto a user’s screen.

*Impressions reported include house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser’s own web property.

Example: An estimated 79.4 million CDNOW banners were completely loaded on users' computers during the reporting period. These banners were delivered to 18.5% or 12.5 million home Internet users.

Top Banners, ranked according to reach percentage, are cited from BannerTrack^SM, Nielsen//NetRatings' syndicated ad research service.

	Advertiser*	Reach %	Creative
1.	Capital One (NYSE:COF)	8.0	Visa Platinum; Credit Limit, Fixed APR, Apply Online, Submit
2.	TreeLoot	7.5	Punch the Monkey and Win $20!
3.	Acceleration Software	6.7	Find the ball and win a FREE Internet Telephone AND a web accelerator!
4.	Bonzi Software	6.4	Your Internet Connection Is Not Optimized. Download InternetBOOST ’99 Now!
5.	Autoweb	6.1	BUY IT; SELL IT
6.	Autoweb	6.0	GET A PRICE
7.	eBay/ First USA	5.9	eBay Visa, Apply now!
8.	Bonzi Software	5.7	Speed Up Internet Connection
9.	ShopNow.com (NASDAQ:SPNW)	5.6	Shopnow.com. Connecting buyers and sellers worldwide. Stores, products, brands.
10.	Lowestfare	5.4	Lowestfare.com. So, You wanna Discount or what? OK

*Ad banners that run predominantly on an advertiser's own property are not included in the top banner rankings.

Nielsen//NetRatings: Average Internet Usage
Month of October 1999

  Data below represent activity for the average Internet user during the month.

	Current Month	Last Month	% Change
Number of Sessions per Month	17	16	+6.3
Number of Unique Sites Visited	11	11	0.0
Page Views per Month	524	409	+28.1
Page Views per Surfing Session	31	26	+19.2
Time Spent per Month	8: 12: 37	7: 30: 51	+9.3
Time Spent During Surfing Session	0: 29: 21	0: 28: 18	+3.7
Duration of a Page Viewed	0: 00: 57	0: 01: 05	-13.0
Average Click Rate for Top Banners	0.53	0.56	-5.4
Active Internet Universe (actually surfed)	67.8 million	65.0 million	+4.3
Current Internet Universe Estimate (had access, but did not necessarily go online)	113.0 million	110.0 million	+2.7

The Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects data from approximately 38,000 panelists as they use the Internet. The Nielsen//NetRatings panel is the largest media research sample of at-home Internet users currently being measured in real time. Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the industry.

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Copyright 1999, NetRatings, Inc.

 

Note to Editors: Nielsen Media Research is the well-known TV ratings company. It is separate from ACNielsen Corporation, the market research services company.

Safe Harbor: This press release includes statements which may constitute forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although Nielsen Media Research believes the statements are reasonable, it can make no assurances that such expectations will prove to be correct. This information may involve risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, risks associated with competition in the market for audience measurement services; the ability to develop new or advanced technologies and systems for the company's business on a cost-effective basis; the ability to timely and cost-effectively resolve any problems associated with the Year 2000 issue; the results of litigation affecting the company; the ability to successfully achieve estimated effective tax rates and corporate overhead levels; regulatory and legislative initiatives; leverage and debt service (including sensitivity to fluctuations in interest rates); compliance with covenants in loan agreements; the ability to obtain future financing on satisfactory terms; deterioration in economic conditions, particularly in the media or other industries where customers operate; and other factors detailed in the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings. back to press room.