Microsoft Top Online Company
Nielsen/Netratings came out with its latest numbers on the most popular websites, dividing the numbers into two charts. On one, they list the top parent companies, that is the top entire audience served by a company across all its websites, domains and brands. On the other, they list the top brands, that is the biggest audiences under a single brand name. An example is that, on the first list, Microsoft and MSN/Windows Live are combined, while on the second, they are seperate, competing brands.
Microsoft did well on both lists, but took first place on the company list, with a 118 million person audience, beating Google by 1.1 million users. On the brand chart, Microsoft made third place with 95 million, falling short of Google and Yahoo by 15-17 million. Microsoft’s MSN/Windows Live unit also took fourth place, garnering 94 million users. In theory, this means MSN/Live’s 94 million audience ovelaps with Microsoft’s over 80% of the time, with 24 million users uniquely different between the two.
