Kings of their domains

by BRIAN MILNES*

The ranking of the top four domains accessed by New Zealand at-home surfers remained unchanged in April, according to the Nielsen//NetRatings Internet audience survey.

A shift occurred in fifth spot, with passport.com bumping xtrasite.co.nz to eighth place. All offshore domains recorded increased audience numbers.

Xtra.co.nz and xtrasite.co.nz continue to be the most popular New Zealand domains, with a common audience of 226,000 unique users. Xtrasite.co.nz's decline in user activity in the month could perhaps have been caused by the March figures being inflated by the popularity of a car competition, which closed on March 31.

April saw i4free.co.nz and Clear's Zfree.co.nz introduce new free services into the competitive New Zealand internet service provider market, and saw both brands break into the top 20 for Nielsen//NetRatings unique audience rankings. Zfree.co.nz and i4free.co.nz ranked 12th and 13th respectively in the list of New Zealand domains.

The surge in free internet traffic may have affected some established players but was not achieved at the expense of traffic to existing local pay ISPs, which maintained or grew their unique audiences; iHug's audience figures increased by 4 per cent from March to April. Subscribers to free services may be maintaining their existing ISP while assessing the free products.

* Brian Milnes is Managing Director Pacific of Nielsen//NetRatings.