South Africa`s online publishing industry attracted over 3.5 million unique users and 106 million page impressions in August, the Online Publishers` Association (OPA) said last week. However, it admits its counting system is not perfect.
The figures were released based on the new Nielsen/NetRatings Site Census product, which tracks the performance of the country`s top online publishers. The new industry-wide system aims to provide access to advanced statistics and demographics never seen before on the South African Web.
According to the OPA, the system also allows SA`s Web sites to be measured consistently, comparable to other media types.
OPA chairman Russel Hanly says the findings could be 20% to 30% "out", but the system is needed to show the Internet is becoming a viable medium.
Not a true reflection
ITWeb and publishing house Ramsay Son & Parker, both founding members of the OPA, withheld their numbers this month because of the large variance.
"Based on our own research, we don`t think the system is mature yet. But we do support what the OPA is trying to achieve," says ITWeb CEO Jovan Regasek.
Neal Farell, GM of Digital Publishing, a division of Ramsay Son & Parker, says his company refused to sign off its numbers, as it was not confident the figures provided a true reflection.
"The problem was a combination of pages not being tagged properly and miscommunication, and this resulted in a set of data being excluded," he says.
Farell says he is confident Ramsay Son & Parker will participate in future OPA number releases.
Hanly says there was a problem with the measuring of static displays, such as those typically found on sponsorships and advertising sites, and this was often the cause of the variance.
Well-educated Web users
According to the OPA`s statistics, SA`s online publishers attract a highly educated audience, with the largest group of Internet users (about 24%) holding post-graduate degrees and about 20% of users holding bachelor`s degrees.
Almost 20% of users, by far the largest group in the household-income category, are in the top-earning bracket (total annual household income of R400 000 a year or more). About 57% of users surveyed own the houses they live in (which includes paying it off).
The statistics also show that more Web users access the Internet from work (57%) than from home (33%); 59% of Web users are male and 41% are female; and the predominant age bracket is between 18 and 34.
Johannesburg was revealed as the biggest Internet city, originating 24% of the Internet audience, followed by Cape Town (15%), Pretoria (10%) and Durban (6%). Twenty-one percent of respondents live outside SA.
Hanly says the total readership is set to increase further because new members such as SABCnews.com, Creamer Media and JHBlive.com have yet to be counted on the new system.
"The OPA service is necessary as we need a universal measurement system that everyone can participate in," says BDFM information services manager Jeff Cohen.
The OPA is a grouping of SA`s most prominent online publishers. The group`s aim is to promote the growth and profitability of the online publishing industry, by setting the highest standards and meeting the needs of marketing and advertising professionals.
The readerships for SA`s top online publishers on the system are as follows:
TABLE
Not all publishers are at this time represented here: ITWeb, Ramsay Son & Parker, SABCnews.com, Creamer Media and JHBlive.com are missing from this list.
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