Web Week

Capital takes the taste test

Do Wellingtonians have different web tastes than the rest of us? Yes, although you wouldn't know it from this Nielsen//NetRatings chart, which shows the top sites for Wellington residents in March from those sites it monitors. XtraMSN, inevitably, tops the list. No surprise, also, in the fact - not shown in the chart - that Wellington residents make up three-quarters of visitors to wellington.govt.nz, the Wellington City Council's site.

Online loyalty

Wellington residents are loyal to their local newspaper, even online. Stuff is the website of Fairfax NZ, publisher of the Dominion-Post, which contributes the bulk of the site's content. Another popular local newspaper site is times-age.co.nz, the virtual Wairarapa Times-Age. The view from Auckland is not ignored: the Herald website managed about half as many Wellington visitors in March as Stuff - and more than TVNZ.

Home-grown

Where do Wellington people bank online? Of the bank sites Nielsen//NetRatings watches, Westpac tops the list. Also: Wellingtonians make up a third of visitors to nzrugby.com and 42 per cent of visitors to music site noizyland.com. Both sites are located in the capital ... parochialism is alive and well.