Napster's demise costs industry

By BRIAN MILNES*

As the recording industry strove to put downloading website Napster to sleep, publicity surrounding the case pushed a virtual torrent of surfers to the site, thereby potentially depriving the industry of millions of copyright dollars it had thought it was protecting.

In New Zealand alone, Napster visitors peaked at around 40,000 home-based individuals.

In May, Napster recorded a unique New Zealand at-home audience of 17,190 people, according to local figures from Nielsen//NetRatings.

By comparison, rival MP3.com recorded 22,111 unique visitors for the same period.

As the Napster case gained publicity, both services made slight gains, but since July, Napster's audience rose rapidly as the looming legal deadline pushed more and more people to the site, anxious to download as much music as possible before the service was taken down.

September Nielsen//NetRatings figures show more than 40,000 New Zealanders accessed the site from home, almost twice the number of its legal competitor MP3.

During September, visits to the Napster site averaged 3.5 per person.

And Olympics euphoria helped local news sites reach personal bests.

The table (above) shows how a major event such as the Sydney Games drove total web audiences to record levels, although a closer look at surfing activity reveals that the real New Zealand winners in September were the news and information sites - clearly indicating the value of high-interest content delivered in real time.

Internet sites with Olympics content contributed heavily to significant growth for the news and information category, with 27 per cent of all home internet users visiting a news and information site in September - up from 19 per cent the previous month.

* Brian Milnes is chief executive of ACNielsen in New Zealand.