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Image Hosting Grows Dramatically As Blogging Increases

2005-09-14T10:42:00.000-07:00

New York, New York - September 14, 2005 - Image hosting web site traffic has skyrocketed due to a massive rise in blogging activity seen since the beginning of this year, according to NetRatings, Inc. market research. Image hosting sites have grown 406 percent to more than 14.7 million unique users since January 2005, accounting for nearly 10 percent of active U.S. Internet users (see Table 1).
The top referring sites for the top five image hosting sites during August 2005 included MySpace.com, Xanga.com, LiveJournal, Blogger and MSN Spaces. In July 2005, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that 20 percent of active web users, or 29.3 million people, accessed blogging or blog-related web sites, growing 31 percent since the beginning of the year.
Jon Gibs, Senior Research Manager, Nielsen//NetRatings explained, "The large rise in blogging activity has lifted other web sites, the primary one being image hosting sites. Simple text-based 'diaries' have evolved into a more image-oriented presentation."
Table 1. Top 5 Image Hosting Web Sites, Jan. vs. Aug. 2005 (Home and Work,
U.S.)
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Site Jan 05 UA (000) Aug 05 UA (000) Jan-Aug Growth
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PhotoBucket 1,537 12,241 696%
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ImageShack 1,150 3,444 199%
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Putfile.com -- 1,302 --
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TinyPic.com -- 715 --
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Imagevenue.com -- 559 --
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Category* 2,912 14,734 406%
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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, September 2005
*Note: Category is comprised of 50 image hosting Web sites.
Teens Index Higher for Image Hosting Sites
Female teens between the ages of 12 to 17 years indexed the highest out of the age groups broken down by gender. Females between 12 to 17 years were two and a half times more likely to visit an image hosting site than the average site audience, followed by males in the same age group (see Table 2).
"Particularly for the younger demographics where social circles have permeated online, web journals have become just another way of getting to know someone," said Gibs.
Table 2. Highest Indexing Age and Gender Groups for Image Hosting Sites
(U.S., Home and Work)
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Demo Group Unique Audience (000) Composition % Composition Index
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Female 12 - 17 2,219 15% 259
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Male 12 - 17 1,532 10% 191
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Male 21 - 24 479 3% 182
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Male 18 - 24 1,004 7% 175
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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, September 2005
*Note: Demographics are based on a category of 50 image hosting Web
sites.
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Nielsen//NetRatings reports August 2005 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. In addition, Nielsen//NetRatings reveals the Top Advertisers by Company for August 2005.
Nielsen//NetRatings Top 10 Web Sites by Parent Company and Top 10 Web Sites By Brand, August 2005
Table 1. Top 10 Parent Companies, Table 2. Top 10 Brands,
Combined Home and Work Combined Home and Work
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Parent Unique Time Per Brand Unique Time Per
Audience Person Audience Person
(000) (hh:mm:ss) (000) (hh:mm:ss)
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1. Microsoft 111,231 2:12:46 1. Yahoo! 101,283 3:38:42
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2. Time Warner 103,023 5:15:56 2. Microsoft 95,621 0:45:44
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3. Yahoo! 101,521 3:38:52 3. MSN 92,059 1:52:39
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4. Google 81,653 0:46:55 4. Google 80,354 0:45:40
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5. eBay 57,757 2:07:30 5. AOL 75,721 6:27:58
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6. United States 6. eBay 55,181 2:05:05
Government 55,067 0:27:00
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7. InterActive- 7. MapQuest 38,959 0:13:02
Corp 45,745 0:19:53
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8. Amazon 43,221 0:25:17 8. Amazon 37,644 0:22:30
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9. RealNetworks 36,957 0:58:43 9. Real 36,362 0:57:53
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10. Viacom 10. Weather
International 36,558 1:11:02 Channel 31,176 0:32:32
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Example: The data indicates that 36.6 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Viacom International-owned sites or launched a Viacom International-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 1 hour, 11 minutes and 2 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.
A parent company is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. A brand is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content. Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data is expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.
Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance Top 10 Advertisers, August 2005
Top advertisers, ranked by estimated spending, are based on data from AdRelevance, Nielsen//NetRatings' advertising research service. An impression is counted as the number of times an ad is rendered for viewing.
Top 10 Advertisers by Estimated Spending
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Advertiser Total Estimated Spending Impressions (000)
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1. United Online, Inc. $18,062,500 5,317,932
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2. LowerMyBills.com, Inc. $15,309,300 3,766,517
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3. Vonage Holdings Corp $14,165,400 3,130,147
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4. Apollo Group, Inc. $13,570,100 3,384,091
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5. Dell Computer Corporation $9,884,300 2,769,026
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6. NexTag.com $9,166,800 2,143,043
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7. Netflix, Inc. $8,995,100 1,910,061
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8. Orbitz $8,318,200 1,132,212
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9. Verizon Communications, Inc. $7,978,000 1,900,260
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10. Scottrade, Inc. $7,926,200 1,821,289
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Estimated spending reflects CPM-based advertising only, and excludes search-based advertising, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, partnership advertising, advertorials, promotions, email and direct response. Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser's own Web property.
Example: An estimated 1.8 billion Scottrade, Inc. ads were rendered for viewing at the cost of approximately $7.9 million during the surfing period.
For more information, please visit http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/.

Go Daddy Hosting Named Tops in SSL Certificates

2005-09-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

Scottsdale, Arizona - September 14, 2005 - Go Daddy has announced today that it had the largest one-month gain amongst all certificate authorities for August with respect to new SSL-enabled sites, according to Netcraft. Netcraft is a globally respected authority on the market share of web servers, operating systems, hosting providers, ISPs, encrypted transactions, electronic commerce, scripting languages and content technologies on the Internet. In addition to the largest one-month gain, a review of other Netcraft data reveals that Go Daddy has recently achieved other milestones in the Secure SSL certificate market. First, in the last nine months, Go Daddy has quadrupled its Secure SSL certificate global market share. Second, in the domain-validated SSL market segment, which accounts for nearly 50% of all Secure SSL certificate sales worldwide, Go Daddy has experienced double-digit growth every month since Netcraft began reporting those statistics in October 2004.Bob Parsons, President and Founder of Go Daddy commented on the news, "We are delighted with our continued success in the secure certificate marketplace and expect our growth to continue well into 2006 and beyond. More and more customers worldwide are discovering that Go Daddy offers the best SSL certificate products (with industry standard 128-bit encryption level, as well as high-grade 256-bit encryption), at the lowest prices and supported by the very best customer service.''Go Daddy has become a strong competitor in the growing market for SSL certificates, as shown by its performance as the fastest growing certificate authority in August," said Netcraft analyst Rich Miller. "Go Daddy's pricing and product positioning is clearly proving attractive to small businesses adding e-Commerce capabilities to their web sites." For further information, please visit: www.godaddy.com.

Web Host, Lunarpages, Retains Uptime in Los Angeles Power Outage

2005-09-13T10:40:00.000-07:00

La Habra, California - September 13, 2005 - A widespread power outage hit Los Angeles on Monday, knocking out electricity to nearly half the city, snarling traffic and stranding high-rise office workers in elevators or trains as officials scrambled to determine the cause. The power outage left dozens of Los Angeles based web hosts without power. Hundreds of thousands of business, E-commerce and personal web sites went dark for several hours as their sites and emails were inaccessible. The impact of the power failure caused millions of dollars in online revenue to be lost while businesses sat helpless without the use of their emails or their online stores.Lunarpages' emergency procedures allowed their customers' web sites and email to remain 100% functional throughout the outage.
Lee Coleman, Director of Technology for Lunarpages explained the emergency processes, ''Our experience with the 2001 California power outages as well as our planning and testing for other potentially harmful events have prepared us for this type of crisis. We have taken every preventative measure possible to ensure our service reliability in the face of any event that could disrupt our customers' online businesses. I am happy to say, our redundant systems and emergency power protocols passed this test with flying colors.''Lunarpages' reputation as a reliable web hosting service once again remained strong as the company demonstrated that it is ready for any contingency.
Lunarpages representatives indicated that they have received a significant increase in sales inquiries from customers who were affected by the outage and they are reporting an estimated 53% rise in new sales today from last Monday.
Trey Gardner, Director of Sales and Marketing commented on the trend, ''Many of the webmasters affected by this power failure asked for proof that our clients' sites were still up and we provided that for them. We also made sure that those customers migrating to us took advantage of our Special Transfer Hosting Offer so that they would not lose any of the financial investment they had made with the companies they were leaving.''
The overwhelmingly positive response proved that customers looking for affordable hosting put a premium on uptime and reliability. Lunarpages' 99.9% uptime even in the face of a city-wide power outage has reassured existing and new customers that Lunarpages is serious about providing the best web hosting for their dollar.
For more information, contact Lunarpages by calling 1-877-LUNARPAGES (586-2772) or visit: http://lunarpages.com.

Microsoft Launches New Windows Web Site Builder

2005-09-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

Redmond, Washington and Herndon, Virginia - September 7, 2005 - Microsoft Corp. and SWsoft, a server automation and virtualization software company, have announced the availability of a browser-based web site-building application for the Microsoft Windows operating system. SWsoft SiteBuilder for Windows will be available for free to hosters worldwide through Sept. 30, 2006, as part of a special promotion. The new offering includes a powerful wizard-driven interface, high-quality web site templates, integration with Microsoft Windows, full support and much more. Pascal Martin, general manager for Hosting Solutions at Microsoft described the new product offering, "Building on the success of the Web Site Starters for Windows launched in May, Microsoft is pleased to be working with SWsoft to offer hosters compelling end-user applications that will help them attract more customers. Demand for Windows-based hosting services continues to grow, and Microsoft, along with industry partners like SWsoft, is committed to helping hosters build great businesses on Windows."
Kurt Daniel, Director of Marketing at SWsoft added, "We are excited to work with Microsoft to bring to market a powerful and effective site-building application for service providers, resellers and end users. SiteBuilder for Windows provides best-in-class value to the worldwide hosting market with the addition of a proven, revenue-producing customer retention application that is further integrated with our full range of hosting software solutions."
"Our shared hosting business built on Microsoft Windows-based applications has experienced excellent growth with the help of applications that are compelling and cost-effective for our customers," said Carlos Caneja, CTO of Applied Innovations. "SWsoft SiteBuilder for Windows gives our business a strong advantage in enabling our customers to create, publish and edit attractive Web sites through a surprisingly easy-to-use wizard-driven interface."
SWsoft's SiteBuilder for Windows is a next-generation, web-based site builder application that allows for quick and easy creation and editing of web sites. In five simple steps, customers can create and deploy their own Web sites without any previous site-building experience.
The advantages of SiteBuilder for Windows include the following:
-- Easy-to-use web interface. Five-step point-and-click wizard that provides design and layout templates, page structure, sample text placement and a powerful WYSIWYG editor for less tech-savvy users
-- Easily differentiated design. Assortment of skins to integrate with their control panels and facilitate private branding
-- Advanced design templates and features. More than 300 sophisticated templates as well as advanced statistics, photo albums and more
-- Open architecture. Ability for more advanced users to modify default template designs and add new templates, page sets and modules
-- Microsoft platform support. Integration with Microsoft Windows Server(TM) operating system features and Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine
-- Professional 24x7x365 support and updates. Comprehensive SWsoft support along with regular product updates
English, Japanese, Spanish and German language versions of the SiteBuilder are available for immediate download at http://www.sw-soft.com/en/products/sitebuilder/win. Versions in additional languages are scheduled to be available soon. The no-cost promotion will extend through Sept. 30, 2006. More information can be found at http://www.sw-soft.com/en/products/sitebuilder/win.