• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, August 31, 2007

The Online Publishers Association last month issued a study showing people are spending more time viewing content online than in the past. With the spread of broadband and explosion of online video, among other things, that seems a logical outcome.

Web users spend 47 percent of their Web time on content sites, up from 34 percent in 2003. Communications sites like e-mail, meanwhile, account for only 33 percent of people’s online time today, down from 46 percent four years ago.

But among the factors cited for content’s growing importance online is the role of instant messaging in reducing communications’ share of time online. That’s because IM is a more efficient communications vehicle than e-mail, according to the OPA. That may be, but AOL Instant Messenger helped drive AOL to the top of Nielsen’s new Web rankings that are based on time spent on a site.

Social networking sites also blur the distinction between content and communications. “Consumers spend considerable time with social networking sites, which serve not only as places of content but are also increasingly important communications vehicles,” said OPA president Pam Horan, in connection with the study.

So the shift toward content may not be quite as clear-cut as it first looks. And distinguishing one online activity from another becomes trickier in a Web 2.0 world where different applications are increasingly mashed-up together.