Hitwise's senior research analyst takes a look at the trends that made 2005 a breakout year for citizen's media.
When I stopped to look back at the leading trends in internet usage over the past year, it became obvious that 2005 was the year that consumers took control of the internet. In 2005, consumer generated content became mainstream, thanks to the proliferation of technology that changed how internet users find, share and create content.
Here are five trends in consumer generated content from the last year that will have a profound impact on our internet experience in 2006 and beyond:
1. Social networking comes of age
The cover story on the Business Week December 12, 2005 issue was entitled "MySpace Generation." Indeed, MySpace has become the dominant social networking site for teens and young adults, as well as one of the most visited domains on the internet. Hitwise data shows that in December 2005, it ranked fourth among all sites, and its market share of visits has increased by 846 percent from December 2004 to December 2005. Facebook, a social networking site for college students, has also grown by leaps and bounds over the past year. Clearly college students enjoy social networking in an environment of their peers that is closed to non-students. Other social networking sites, like Hi5, continued to gain ground in 2005.
2. Wikipedia becomes the number one reference site
In June 2005, Wikipedia surpassed Dictionary.com to become the most visited reference site, and in September 2005 it passed the New York Times in market share of visits. Wikipedia's traffic continues to climb despite questions of the accuracy of its content that can be edited by any user. Visits to Wikipedia spiked during key 2005 news events, like the death of Terry Schiavo, the London Bombings and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It appeared high in organic search results for these news events, as well as individuals in the news such as Harriet Miers and John Roberts. While news topics are only a portion of the information available on Wikipedia, users are finding it valuable as a comprehensive source of information on current events.
3. Flickr and tagging take off
Flickr, which allows users to post, share and browse photos by user-defined tags, was purchased by Yahoo! in March 2005 and its market share of visits grew by 1,317 percent from December 2004 to December 2005. It ranked number six among photo-sharing sites in December 2005. Visits to Flickr increased significantly during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and when searches for "hurricane katrina pictures" and other related queries skyrocketed, Flickr was at the top of the organic results thanks to its tagging strategy. Other sites that use tagging, such as 43 Things, Del.icio.us, and YouTube have enjoyed significant growth during the past year as users continue to create, tag and find interesting content.
4. Blogs, blogs, blogs
Blogs became the new media buzzword in 2005, and Yahoo!, Google, AOL and MSN have all made some form of investment in blog services over the past two years. Blog creation and consumption continues to grow wildly -- visits to Technorati, the leading blog search site, were up 797 percent from December 2004 to December 2005, and visits to Bloglines, the leading web-based RSS reader, were up 252 percent in the same period. While much of blog consumption happens through RSS feeds, some of the leading blog sites -- Daily Kos, Engadget and The Superficial -- ranked among the top 2,500 most visited internet sites in December 2005. In addition, Google launched a blog search service in September 2005 and Yahoo! News began including blogs in its news search results in October 2005.
5. Video search goes viral
Video search took off in the second half of the year, when Google launched its video search service and iTunes began selling videocasts of TV shows. Higher broadband penetration and smarter devices like video phones and video iPods mean there will be a greater demand for searchable video content in 2006. From October 2005 to December 2005, visits to Google Video increased by 169 percent, and visits to upstart video search service YouTube shot up 873 percent, mainly due to a video of a Saturday Night Live skit called "Lazy Sunday" that aired in December. Video search is as much about finding amusing home video content as it is about finding television and film content, with home videos such as the two Chinese students singing the Backstreet Boys song "I Want it That Way" captivating internet audiences. Both Google Video and YouTube experienced explosive growth when the two videos mentioned above spread through email and social networking sites. Yahoo! Video Search remains the leader among video search services, and its market share of visits grew by a more modest 18 percent in the October - December period.
All of the sites mentioned above, with the exception of Daily Kos, Del.icio.us and Technorati, skew toward visitors under 35 years of age. Young internet users appear to enjoy consuming content created by their peers, and feel less of a need to get information and entertainment from established, authoritative sources. The older age skew of Technorati and Del.icio.us indicate that the older generation is also adopting new technology and new practices like tagging with enthusiasm.
The explosion in consumer generated content will continue into 2006, particularly in the area of video, as broadband penetration grows and devices get smarter. As the internet heavyweights (Google, Yahoo!, AOL and MSN) continue to invest in and promote technology that makes it easier to post and search for content, there will be a smaller and smaller divide between content creators and content consumers.
About Hitwise:
Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.
By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.
Hitwise collects internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
LeeAnn Prescott is senior research analyst, Hitwise. Read full bio.