Comscore Networks Releases Top Web Properties Worldwide for December; Reviews Biggest Gainers for 2006

Worldwide Internet Usage Increases 10 Percent in 2006; Top Gaining Categories for 2006 Include Search, Multimedia, Community, E-mail, and Games

London, U.K., January 31, 2007 – Comscore Networks, a leader in measuring the digital age, today reported the top worldwide Web properties for December, ranked by unique visitors. According to the analysis, Worldwide Internet usage increased 10 percent from December 2005 to December 2006. The Search/Navigation category, which includes the three sites that draw the largest worldwide audiences, grew 9 percent, led by Google (the Number 2 site worldwide), which rose 13 percent in worldwide visitors in 2006. Microsoft and Yahoo! Sites each grew 5 percent worldwide during 2006, ranking first and third, respectively.

“Google’s popularity has been driven in part by its international appeal as well as the rapid uptake of some of Google’s applications beyond traditional Web search,” said Bob Ivins, managing director of Comscore Europe. “Examples include the 40-percent year-over-year growth in visitors to Google Image Search, the 71-percent growth in visitors to Gmail, and the 62-percent growth in visitors to Google Maps.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes and access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Top Gaining Categories in 2006

Overall, the top-gaining categories worldwide in 2006 included Multimedia (up 37 percent), Community (up 33 percent), E-mail (up 16 percent), News/Information (up 15 percent) and Games (up 14 percent). A major driver of growth in the multimedia category wasYouTube.com, which grew 1,972 percent versus year ago to reach 120 million worldwide visitors in December. In the Community category, which includes social networking sites, MySpace and Blogger were both significant growth drivers, growing 159 percent to 90 million worldwide visitors and 90 percent to 93 million worldwide visitors, respectively. Growth in the e-mail category was driven largely by the rapid adoption of Google Gmail, which was up 71 percent to 60 million visitors year-over-year. Growth in the News/Information category was driven largely by MSN News & Weather (up 131 percent to 25 million worldwide visitors), Yahoo! News (up 44 percent year-over-year to 104 million worldwide visitors), and New York Times Digital (up 20 percent to 68 million worldwide visitors). Finally, the Games category was driven by sites like Nintendo.com (up 157 percent to 19 million worldwide visitors), EA Online (up 13 percent to 27 million worldwide visitors), and Yahoo! Games (up 10 percent to 58 million worldwide visitors).

About Comscore World Metrix

Comscore World Metrix is the first service to continuously measure and report online behaviour on a world-wide basis, providing visitation metrics and demographic characteristics for Web site audiences around the world. With active representation of countries that comprise the vast majority of the global Internet population, World Metrix provides its clients with worldwide Internet population estimates and harmonized online performance metrics based on a consistent methodology across all countries. More than 100 clients subscribe to Comscore’s World Metrix service, including 8 of the top 10 interactive advertising agencies.

About Comscore Networks
Comscore Networks is a global leader in measuring the digital age. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given Comscore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour, including online and offline purchasing. Comscore panellists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, Comscore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behaviour and attitudes. Comscore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. Comscore services are used by global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com