Microsoft sites are the most popular on the web

Mon Nov 9 2009, 12:59 PM UTC

Microsoft web properties are the most engaging on the internet, according to September comScore figures, beating Yahoo!, Google and Facebook thanks to the popularity of Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger chat service. Microsoft properties accounted for 14.5% of all time spent online in September, with the firm accounting for more than 3.9bn hours out of a total of 27bn spent by all users over the month.

Google came second in comScore’s report with 2.5bn hours, accounting for 9.3% of all time spent online. Both Google and Microsoft registered healthy increases in the amount of time spent on their sites compared with September 2008. Time spent on Google rose 49%, outpacing a 43% rise for Microsoft properties. Yahoo! fell from second place in 2008 to third in 2009 with a 14% decline in the amount of time spent on its sites.

Facebook saw the largest increase in time spent on its sites with a jump of almost 200% to 474m hours. In contrast, Fox Interactive Media (FIM) saw a massive 44% decrease in time spent on its site, falling from 361m hours to just 204m. FIM is the since-renamed News Corp digital division comprised largely of MySpace.

Windows Live Messenger accounted for 70% of all time spent on Microsoft properties. Some commentators say its popularity is based on its being bundled with other Microsoft products that have a wide reach, such as the Windows operating system. Microsoft’s practice of bundling software with its products has come under increasing scrutiny, with the EU calling for the software giant to include rival browsers in new copies of Windows.

YouTube accounted for almost half the time spent on Google sites. The video network dominates online video, but is yet to turn a profit. However, Google execs say they are confident YouTube will generate income in the near future.

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