The Internet Activity Index (IAI) provides a unique way of looking at consumer engagement online, dividing Internet usage into five distinct activities: Content, Communications, Commerce, Community and Search, defined as follows:

• Content - Web sites and Internet applications that are designed primarily to provide news, information and entertainment. Examples of those included in this segment are CNN.com, ESPN.com, Windows Media Player and MapQuest.
• Communications - Web sites and Internet applications that are designed to facilitate the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information directly between individuals or groups of individuals. Examples of those included in this segment are Yahoo! Mail, AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Groups.
• Commerce - Web sites and Internet applications that are designed for shopping online. Examples of those included in this segment are Amazon, eBay, Shopping.com and Dell.com.
• Community - Web sites and Internet applications that combine user-generated content with communications in order to foster relationships between individual members and groups of members.  Examples of those included in this segment are Facebook and MySpace.
• Search - Web sites and Internet applications that scan the Web to provide prioritized results based on specific criteria from user-generated requests. Examples of those included in this segment are Google Search, MSN Search and Yahoo! Search.

While some of these categories share common elements – for instance, there are strong community aspects to many News, Sports and other content sites -- it has become clear that each of these areas has very distinct characteristics, leading to a natural and healthy segmentation of the marketplace. By tracking share of time spent on each activity, the Index provides a benchmark for charting the relative impact of changing market dynamics on these segments as the medium matures.

The IAI is derived from a categorization of Web properties accounting for more than 90 percent, on average, of active Web users and approximately 55 percent of total usage time.* For Web properties that have clearly distinguishable site segments that cross into multiple categories, the segments are classified individually wherever possible (for example, Yahoo! Mail is classified under Communications, while Yahoo! Sports is classified under Content). The total amount of time spent by consumers in each category is then captured by Nielsen Online and reported monthly by the OPA. Specific sites included in the Index are proprietary to Nielsen Online and the OPA.

Since 2003, the IAI has provided monthly reports of time spent with Content, Communications, Commerce and Search. Beginning June 2009, Nielsen moved from its online panel to its Netview RDD//Online panel. With this change, we are not able to directly compare June 2009 IAI data with prior months. 

The OPA and Nielsen Online will continually monitor for significant new entries to the market and incorporate and categorize them in the Index accordingly as monthly data is released.

For historical data preceding this period, please click here.

Share of Time Spent Online (%) Jan09 Feb09 Mar09 Apr09 May09 Jun09 Jul09 Aug09 Sep09 Oct09 Nov09 Dec09 Jan10  Commerce 14.1 13.4 13.2 13.3 12.8 11.0 10.9 10.5 10.2 10.5 12.0 12.7 11.0  Communications 26.5 27.4 27.0 26.4 26.3 25.2 24.4 24.0 24.0 23.2 22.7 21.9 20.6  Community 11.3 12.6 12.8 13.7 14.5 18.5 20.6 22.4 22.0 23.6 24.0 24.2 27.5  Content 42.8 41.1 41.5 41.3 41.1 40.6 39.6 38.5 39.4 38.3 37.0 36.9 36.5  Search 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.3 5.3 4.7 4.5 4.6 4.4 4.5 4.3 4.2 4.3 % Change in Share of Time, Month-Over-Month Jan09 Feb09 Mar09 Apr09 May09 Jun09 Jul09 Aug09 Sep09 Oct09 Nov09 Dec09 Jan10  Commerce 11.9 5.0 1.5 0.8 3.8 - 0.9 3.7 2.9 2.9 14.3 5.8 13.4  Communications 2.3 3.4 1.5 2.2 0.4 - 3.2 1.6 0.0 3.3 2.2 3.5 5.9  Community 16.5 11.5 1.6 7.0 5.8 - 11.4 8.7 1.8 7.3 1.7 0.8 13.6  Content 0.9 4.0 1.0 0.5 0.5 - 2.5 2.8 2.3 2.8 3.4 0.3 1.1  Search 0.0 1.9 1.9 3.6 0.0 - 4.3 2.2 4.3 2.3 4.4 2.3 2.4

*Notes: Excludes .gov and .edu Web sites, as well as pornographic domains. Percentage change indicates the percentage increase or decrease from the previous month's value (June 2009 % change not shown due to introduction of Nielsen's NetView RDD//Online data). Share of Time data based on Total Time values. Source: OPA and Nielsen Online