It shouldn’t surprise anyone: E-mail is still the top online activity for adults, according to a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. But search is gaining on it.
Of those surveyed, 77% use e-mail daily, although that number has fallen from 85% in June 2004. Separate tracking by comScore Media Metrix found that e-mail users spent an average 24 minutes a day on e-mail, compared to less than four minutes on search.
Meanwhile, search is growing as a reason people go online, surpassing checking news.The study found that 63% of all Americans online reported using a search engine daily in September. That’s a 55% increase over June 2004.
The study found that of the 94 million Americans online, 59 million — or 63%–reported using a search engine daily in September. That’s a 55% increase over the number who said the same in June 2004.
“The evolution of search engines as everyday consumer Web tools has made them a vital resource for marketers,” said James Lamberti, vice president of comScore Networks. “Search engines are obviously a critical vehicle in reaching consumers during the buy cycle, but they also offer a rich source for consumer profiling, segmentation, and measurement of product demand. To-date, we have only witnessed the preliminary impact of search engines on e-commerce.”
ComScore data showed that Google had the highest traffic among search engines in October, with 89.8 million unique visitors. Yahoo! Search followed with 68 million visitors, followed by MSN Search (49.7 million), Ask Jeeves (43.7 million) and AOL Search (36.1 million).
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