Half of the U.S. population will communicate via email by 2001.

The number of people with email access worldwide will grow 800% to 450 million in the next three years, up from 60 million today.

75% of online users used email in the last month.

41% of online users check their email daily.

Email is the lowest common denominator on the Internet. More people have email than access to the Web.

U.S. Web Usage and Traffic, May 2004
Traffic Patterns

June 16, 2004
Nielsen//NetRatings examined where U.S. Internet users were going and how long they were staying during May 2004. While there were far fewer at-work users than there were at home, the working Internet population spent more time online and surfing.

Average Web Usage US May 2004
	Home	Work
Number of Sessions/Visits Per Person	31	64
Number of Domains Visited Per Person	54	102
PC Time Per Person	26:20:06	75:19:57
Duration of a Web Page Viewed	00:00:54	00:01:00
Active Digital Media Universe	142,406,616	51,076,337
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate	205,343,851	55,519,965
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

According to the traffic measurements, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google were among the sites that garnered the most unique visitors, with users spending considerably more time at sites belonging to the Time Warner Network, such as America Online.

Top Parent Companies for May 2004, U.S., Home
Parent Name	Unique Audience (000)	Research	Time Per Person (hr:min:sec)
Microsoft	94,791	66.56%	01:25:20
Time Warner	82,656	58.04%	03:39:48
Yahoo!	81,285	57.08%	01:49:59
Google	51,120	35.90%	00:17:47
eBay	37,816	26.55%	01:27:43
United States Government	30,828	21.65%	00:17:15
Ask Jeeves	27,757	19.49%	00:21:16
InterActiveCorp	24,232	17.02%	00:17:36
Amazon	23,002	16.15%	00:15:09
RealNetworks	21,744	15.27%	00:42:59
Note: Parent company is a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity.
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Top Parent Companies for May 2004, U.S., Work
Parent Name	Unique Audience (000)	Research	Time Per Person (hr:min:sec)
Microsoft	45,207	88.51%	01:56:25
Yahoo!	37,219	72.87%	02:38:36
Time Warner	36,106	70.69%	05:02:33
Google	30,568	59.85%	00:33:08
United States Government	25,199	49.34%	00:25:37
eBay	20,981	41.08%	01:31:56
InterActiveCorp	18,182	35.60%	00:21:31
Amazon	17,345	33.96%	00:20:05
Landmark Communications	13,910	27.23%	00:14:20
Ask Jeeves	13,626	26.68%	00:43:14
Note: Parent company is a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity.
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings

Definitions:

Parent company is a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity.
Number of Sessions per Month: The average number of computer sessions per person for the specified reporting period. A session consists of Web sessions and/or any period of time spent using computer applications.
Number of Unique Domains Visited: An average of the total number of unique domains visited per person for the specified reporting period.
Page Views per Month: The total number of times a Web page has been requested by a user. Page views are counted only when they fully load into the user's browser window. Pages accessed from the user's local cache are included in page view counts. Unique pages will be counted each time they are requested.
Page Views per Surfing Session: Average number of Web pages viewed per person per Web session for the specified reporting period.
Time Spent per Month: Average time spent during active computer sessions per person for the specified reporting period.
Time Spent During Surfing Session: Average time spent per person during an active computer session for the specified reporting period.
Duration of a Page Viewed: Average duration of time that a Web page was viewed per person over the specified reporting period.
Internet Universe: The Nielsen//NetRatings Internet universe is defined as all members, 2 years of age or older, of households that currently have access to the Internet from a personal computer.
Active Internet Universe: People that have used a computer capable of connecting to the Internet AND visited a Web site and/or launched any computer file tracked by Nielsen//NetRatings' applications metering module.
Current Internet Universe Estimate: People over the age of 2 that have access to the Internet from a personal computer at home; includes active and non-active persons in the household.