The share of online time spent with search declined in October,
according to the most recent installment of the Internet Activity Index (IAI). The index shows that “content†and “community†destinations were the only forms of online
media to actually increase their share of time spent online in October vs. September. The study, not surprisingly, comes from the Online Publishers Association, and is conducted in conjunction with
Nielsen Online. The finding, however, may be more reflective of seasonal patterns than part of a longer trend.
While
search’s share of online time dipped slightly from 5.3% in September to 5.2% in October 2008, it’s actually up significantly from 4.9% in October 2007. In fact, the analysis shows that
the share of online time spent with content actually declined year over year, falling to 45.3% in October 2008 vs. 48.6% in October 2007. The caveat: the OPA added a new category â€"
“community†â€" beginning in January of this year, which took some relative share away from its other categories: commerce, communications, content and search. That said, search is
the only category to increase its relative share since “community†was added to the mix. So without knowing all the specifics, it looks like search actually is gaining share of time
spent with online media, not losing it. So much for OPA press release headlines.
Here, you look at the trending tables
and judge for yourself:
 Share of Time Spent Online (%) | | Oct07 | Nov07 | Dec07 | Jan08 | Feb08 | Mar08 | Apr08 | May08 | Jun08 | Jul08 | Aug08 | Sep08 | Oct08 |  Commerce | 15.0 | 17.0 | 17.5 | 16.1 | 15.4 | 15.5 | 15.6 | 14.9 | 14.6 | 14.1 | 13.5 | 13.1 | 12.8 |  Communications | 31.4 | 30.1 | 28.6 | 28.7 | 29.9 | 28.8 | 29.2 | 29.4 | 28.9 | 28.2 | 29.0 | 28.7 | 28.0 |  Community | - | - | - | 7.5 | 7.2 | 7.6 | 7.4 | 7.7 | 8.8 | 9.0 | 8.9 | 8.3 | 8.7 |  Content | 48.6 | 48.0 | 48.7 | 42.7 | 42.2 | 43.0 | 42.6 | 43.0 | 42.3 | 43.4 | 43.2 | 44.6 | 45.3 |  Search | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 5.4 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 5.2 | | % Change in Share of Time, Month-Over-Month | | Oct07 | Nov07 | Dec07 | Jan08 | Feb08 | Mar08 | Apr08 | May08 | Jun08 | Jul08 | Aug08 | Sep08 | Oct08 |  Commerce |  2.7
| 13.3 | 2.9 | - |  4.3
| 0.6 | 0.6 | 4.5 | 2.0 | 3.4 | 4.3 | 3.0 | 2.3 | Â Communications | 1.3 | 4.1 | 5.0 | - | 4.2 | 3.7 | 1.4 | 0.7 | 1.7 | 2.4 | 2.8 | 1.0 | 2.4 | Â Community | - | - | - | - | 4.0 | 5.6 | 2.6 | Discover Our Publications
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