WEDNESDAY 3.00PM:
The first “official” set of South African Internet statistics has been released by the newly formed Audit Bureau of Internet Standards, affiliated to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The figures are the first “honest” attempt by major industry players to provide for independent auditing of web sites using a common set of standards. The first set of figures covers twelve members, most of them in the publishing industry, as well as two Internet service providers and a search engine.
Abis spokesman Louis Eksteen says: “Abis aims to give advertisers a common base on which to compare advertising options quantitatively … Advertisers have welcomed the formation of Abis and the release of the first figures has been eagerly awaited.”
Top of the list is the service provider iAfrica, a “hub” for a wide range of sub-sites, which scores 1_255_298 page accesses (ie, the average number of html files read each month), thanks to a large dial-up subscriber base.
The Electronic Mail&Guardian scores top of the list of news media with an average of 647_358 page accesses per month. In fact, all the other news media added together (including such major titles as Business Day, Financial Mail, Beeld and Burger) score less than the eM&G on its own.
The eM&G also tops the list in the category of “unique hosts”, which is the nearest Internet approximation to numbers of readers. We scored 71_217 unique hosts (many of whom may return frequently over the month) compared to iAfrica’s 22_763.
pages sessions unique hosts iAfrica 1 255 298 522 423 22 763 Ananzi 815 833 144 519 30 506 eM&G 647 358 163 631 71 217 M-Web 497 818 116 777 42 577 Nasionale Pers 255 370 62 999 5 491 Business Day 135 403 66 869 19 637 Financial Mail 92 660 19 230 7 860 Business Times 80 182 23 757 10 678 *