Nielson Netratings has decided that its prime measurement tool will now be time spent on a site per unique visitor rather than page views. This is a signal that Web 2 has come of age. Web 2 sites using AJAX to load content within a page so users do not have to continually load successive pages, making sites more user friendly (if implemented correctly) and faster to work through.
“Web 2.0 technologies and publishing models have set the stage for fast, highly-interactive sites that no longer rely on full page refreshes (aka page views) to deliver user-requested content,”
said Scott Ross, director of product marketing.
“As the Web experience moves further in this direction, the tried and true Page View metric becomes less comprehensive for estimating engagement.”
You would think this would aid MyHome as it is powered predominantly by Web 2 technologies, but I doubt they will impress anyone with their 2:08 minutes (the average user spends on MyHome – Nielson Netratings March 2007 ) times being splashed in press releases across the country.
Nielson is a large company and whilst their reporting is only reserved for the very high end of town and this continues to be a disappointment for the whole industry (as you have to pay them to get your data) they still have clout with advertising agencies.