NEW YORK, NY -- January 13, 2005 -- The Online Publishers Association (OPA) today released the Internet Activity Index (IAI) for December 2004. Indicative of the height of the holiday shopping season, Commerce was the only category to gain share of time spent online in December 2004 over November 2004.

Share of time spent online on Commerce grew 9.9%, from 17.0% in November 2004 to 18.6% in December 2004. Search registered the greatest month-over-month decline on a percentage basis, followed by Communications and Content, respectively.

An analysis of year-over-year data shows that Content experienced the largest gains in share of time spent online on a percentage point basis, up 4.1 percentage points from 34.0% in December 2003 to 38.1% in December 2004. Conversely, Communications dropped 4.9 percentage points, from 44.1% in December 2003 to 39.2% in December 2004, while Commerce and Search experienced slight increases of .4 and .5 percentage points, respectively, over that same time period.

About the Internet Activity Index

The Internet Activity Index divides and tracks Internet usage among four distinct activities -- Content, Communications, Commerce and Search. The Index is based on the proprietary clickstream database that underlies Nielsen//NetRatings' NetView service. Popular online offerings were divided into Communications, Commerce, Content, and Search segments based on an objective approach developed by both the OPA and Nielsen//NetRatings. Nielsen//NetRatings calculates usage metrics for each segment using the same algorithms that are used for all NetView-based custom analytics offerings.

The full results of the Internet Activity Index, along with historical data on a variety of metrics for each category, can be found at the Online Publishers Association Web site at www.online-publishers.org/iai.

About the Online Publishers Association

Founded in June 2001, the Online Publishers Association (OPA) is an industry trade organization whose mission is to advance the interests of high-quality online publishers before the advertising community, the press, the government and the public. Members of OPA represent the standards in Internet publishing with respect to editorial quality and integrity, credibility and accountability. OPA member sites have a combined, unduplicated reach of 110.5 million visitors, or 73 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience (Source: comScore Media Metrix, February 2004 combined home/work/university data). For more information about the Online Publishers Association, visit www.online-publishers.org.

CONTACT:
Lisa Carparelli
Online Publishers Association
(917) 743-4537
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