Key Social Networking and Video sites: Facebook.com was one of the top-gaining social networking sites in March, gaining 25% and eight spots up in the Top 50 ranking to nearly 21 million visitors. Maybe Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) should reconsider its non-pursuit of Facebook.
Home Improvement, Real Estate and Automotive sites gained in March: The beginning of spring remodeling showed real estate sites with a 13% increase in March. Move Network had 9.3 million visitors (up 21%), MSN Real Estate had 4.1 million visitors (up 92%), and Homegain.com had 3.8 million visitors (up 15%). Meredith Corporation (NYSE: MDP) was also a gainer, but if you look at its financial results, they didn't help the bottom line. Home sales may "suck" as one homebuilder CEO said recently, but home improvements may keep the back-end suppliers from dying off.
Automotive resource sites also gained in March with eBay Motors' 15.3 million visitors (up 21%) and AutoTrader with 6.3 million visitors (up 4%). That represents 5% of the U.S. population that visited eBay Motors.
Top 5 Properties (with unique users): #1 Yahoo! sites (131.22 million); #2 Time Warner Network (123.3 million); #3 Microsoft Sites (118.7 million); #4 Google sites (118.49 million); #5 eBay (80.15 million).........Out of the TOP 50 Yahoo! sites remained #1, while Microsoft sites gained one spot to the #3 position.
Top 50 Ad Focus: On the Ad Focus Ranking, March saw Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) Advertising.com reach 86% of the U.S. online population, while Yahoo! inched up one spot to claim the #2 position. ValueClick, Inc. (NASDAQ: VCLK) was #3; AOL Media Network was #6; Google was #7; MSN-Windows Live was #10; AOL was #12. Look at Time Warner being a stud there, makes you wonder if it will go look at more properties...
If you ponder all these numbers you must know that they will probably all be different after the Google-DoubleClick merger in the coming months. But what is incredible is how these rank Time Warner so high in ad monies and "prestige," demonstrating that the company is doing well on its online plans. That may eliminate the calls for the company to split off the AOL unit from the Time Warner properties, particularly if the "new Google" is going to leapfrog so much.
Also if you look through the full press release you'll see that you could almost draw lines connecting names on here to see which mergers would help companies rapidly ramp up their rankings. If you put your thinking cap on you will see that the other large properties may need to answer the Google-DoubleClick deal with more mergers in online advertising. Most of these companies can't take the risk of just standing idle in an online land-grab environment.
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
Top 5 Properties (with unique users): #1 Yahoo! sites (131.22 million); #2 Time Warner Network (123.3 million); #3 Microsoft Sites (118.7 million); #4 Google sites (118.49 million); #5 eBay (80.15 million).........Out of the TOP 50 Yahoo! sites remained #1, while Microsoft sites gained one spot to the #3 position.
Top 50 Ad Focus: On the Ad Focus Ranking, March saw Time Warner Inc.'s (NYSE:TWX) Advertising.com reach 86% of the U.S. online population, while Yahoo! inched up one spot to claim the #2 position. ValueClick, Inc. (NASDAQ: VCLK) was #3; AOL Media Network was #6; Google was #7; MSN-Windows Live was #10; AOL was #12. Look at Time Warner being a stud there, makes you wonder if it will go look at more properties...
If you ponder all these numbers you must know that they will probably all be different after the Google-DoubleClick merger in the coming months. But what is incredible is how these rank Time Warner so high in ad monies and "prestige," demonstrating that the company is doing well on its online plans. That may eliminate the calls for the company to split off the AOL unit from the Time Warner properties, particularly if the "new Google" is going to leapfrog so much.
Also if you look through the full press release you'll see that you could almost draw lines connecting names on here to see which mergers would help companies rapidly ramp up their rankings. If you put your thinking cap on you will see that the other large properties may need to answer the Google-DoubleClick deal with more mergers in online advertising. Most of these companies can't take the risk of just standing idle in an online land-grab environment.
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
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