If you've been thinking about advertising on Instant Messengers (IMs), here are some numbers to keep in mind.
Jupiter Media Metrix today reports that the adoption rate
of IM continues to outpace that of the Internet in the U.S.
From September 2000 to September 2001, the total time spent at work using the top three IM applications - AOL, MSN and Yahoo! -
increased 110% from 2.3 billion to 4.9 billion minutes. The number of unique users of IM applications at work increased 34% to 13.4 million.
Meanwhile, the total time spent with IM at home
increased 48%, from 9.2 billion to 13.6 billion. And the number of unique users of at home increased 28%, from 42.0 million to 53.8 million.
Not surprisingly, AOL - with its Buddy List and ICQ -
remains the leading brand of IM with 41.7 million unique users in September 2001, up 21% the year before. AOL is the leading brand of IM applications at home according to total usage minutes - 9.8
billion minutes in Sept. 2001, up 31% from Sept. 2000. During the same time period, AOL had 8.8 million unique at work users who spent 3.6 billion minutes with IM, up 149% from September 2000.
AOL's closest competitors are catching up. At home, MSN almost doubled its user base to 18.5 million in 12 months; and Yahoo! increased 25%, from 9.5 million users to 11.9 million over the same
period. At work, MSN had 4.8 million users, up 88%; and Yahoo! had 3.4 million users, up 83%.
It's important to note that the percentage of IM users that use two or more competing brands at home
increased from 24% in September 2000 to 29% in September 2001.