“Time Spent Online” Report Puts Microsoft Way Ahead

Despite all the gains other companies (Google, Facebook) have made, it’s still Microsoft’s world, according to new statistics from comScore. comScore found that, in terms of time spent on sites, the Redmond-based corporation continues to maintain a huge lead over its competitors.

People spent about 3.920 billion hours on Microsoft’s sites in September, which equates to about 14.5 percent of the total time spent online. Meanwhile, people only spent about 2.512 hours on Google-owned sites, which works out to 9.3 percent of the total. And Google barely logged more growth than Microsoft (48 percent versus 44 percent).

Things looked even more depressing for Yahoo, as the chart below shows. The real surprise, though, relates to Facebook, the social network that doesn’t "do" much of anything compared to three companies that offer search engines, email, maps, and all other sorts of stuff.

comScore determined that individuals spent about 5.1 percent of their online time on Facebook in September, and that represents an impressive 2.9 percent year-over-year increase. If Facebook can sustain this rate of growth, it might not be long before Yahoo’s forced to eat its dust.

Oddly, Lycos sites experienced a lot of growth in the last year, too, so they may bear watching.

Related Articles:

> Google Top Search Engine In The Asia-Pacific Region

> U.K. Social Networking Accounts For 25% Of Display Ads

> Bing Gains Ground In August

There are 16 Comments. Add Yours.

James
November 7, 2009 at 9:08 am

Is this really a surprise? I mean… the time spent producing anything with microsoft software has always taken substantially longer…

This is interesting however…
Guest
November 7, 2009 at 9:47 am

Silly comparison. The goal when you go to Google is to find what you’re looking for and go to that site. If you’re spending a great deal of time on Google you’re probably being ineffective or you have a great deal of searching to do. I spend a ton of time on MSN because that’s where I read my email. Consequently, that is also where I read my news.
Dan
November 8, 2009 at 9:20 am

The last commenter nailed it. Google doesn’t try to get people to stay on their sites, their whole goal is to get you to click through to someone else’s site so they earn advertising revenue. That’s what really matters: who gets more traffic and how well is that traffic monetized. Considering that, I think Google is kicking Microsoft’s soft little micro.
- James
  November 9, 2009 at 7:43 am
  
  What about adsense… Gmail… Google Apps… Wave ect…
  
  You are completely deluding yourself if you think Google is not trying to get people to stay on their websites…
  
  I think MSN just might have a little bit more entertainment value…
  
  Perhaps they are just doing it better… Maybe the kids at Google could learn a few things from them?
Guest
November 8, 2009 at 10:42 am

Ya… but this means it takes that much longer to find what you want on a microsoft site?
- Guest
  November 8, 2009 at 12:01 pm
  
  i think you have a point here
Roy.
November 8, 2009 at 11:32 am

Hey geniuses! It is not only the main companies only but their OWNED sites too! Google includes Youtube, Gmail and their other crappy companies. Microsoft included Hotmail and their other crap too.
Jeff
November 8, 2009 at 12:27 pm

The ONLY reason why Microsoft is ahead is because of 2 reasons: 1.) Consumers troubleshooting a Microsoft problem and visiting a MS site. 2.) Downloading MS updates.
RC & ME Hobbies
November 8, 2009 at 12:45 pm

With Bing’s new Cash back on purchases, the percentage may even grow more for Microsoft.
Karl K
November 8, 2009 at 2:52 pm

Microsoft’s needs for support & service pack downloads have to drive them to the top of the list!
NeoGraven
November 8, 2009 at 2:58 pm

I think it means that people have that much more problems with Micro$soft than they do otherwise. It takes longer to develop software solutions, IT solutions, end-user solutions take time…. the TCO is enormous compared to other solutions available… for all the commercialized “prettiness” and unscrupulous corporate manner they deal with the market, they still basically suck.

Flame on….
someGuy
November 9, 2009 at 11:15 am

I think this is interesting…not really a ‘silly’ comparison, because I have to assume they are including youtube and other google destination sites in this, not just the search engine itself. I can’t even think of a Microsoft site that I spend any time on at all during the week…what are some?
Michael
November 9, 2009 at 5:02 pm

Microsoft has a substantial market share and by default IE is set to goto the microsoft site out of the box. I work in IT and a lot of my users don’t know how to change thier home page and manually type in google.

Also I can personally account for a couple of hundred hours at MS site, not because it’s better, but because I spend a lot of time troubleshooting error problem that either my users are having with thier systems or errors my servers are throwing at me through the error log.
Guest
November 10, 2009 at 4:29 pm

That just means that it is impossible to find exaclty what you are looking for on Microsofts sites.
Fred
November 11, 2009 at 1:02 am

Of course people spend more time on Microsoft sites. Microsoft is so useless that when you need information about their crappy products you have to sit there and scratch your head to figure out what the hell these morons talking about.

Microsoft sucks, as always.
CSS Training Online
November 11, 2009 at 9:06 pm

With all the problems microsoft products users are dealing with, no wonder they spend more time on those sites trying to find the latest patch, a solution to a problem with Vista. Until Bing capture a wider chunk of the web search pie, all that traffic bandwith will not directly translate into earnings. If users spend more time at Google’s web site it can only means they are having a hard time getting answers to their queries.