Nielsen//NetRatings Announces Top Internet Media Players in November

Measurement service Nielsen//NetRatings (http://www.www.nielsen-netratings.com) announced that the Real Player topped their November usage data for the top Internet media players.

Real Player garnered majority of the usage with a reach of 12.1 percent of the active Internet universe. Apple's Quick Time had a 7.4 percent reach of active Internet users and Microsoft's Windows Media Player held a reach of 3.2 percent. In raw numbers that comes out to 8,973,331 for RealPlayer users, 5,461,303 for QuickTime and 2,376,191 for Windows Media.

"The battle of media players on the end user's desktop is as significant as the battle of desktop operating systems many years ago," said Allen Weiner, vice president of analytical services at NetRatings. "Media players enable developers to fuse TV and radio events with Internet content, providing an experience for users that transcends a single medium."

Nielsen//NetRatings also unveiled the connection speeds the U.S. Web population uses to access the Internet. In November, only 5.9 percent of home users were accessing the Internet via a high-speed connection, which includes ISDN, T1 lines, satellite, cable modem service and the various types of digital subscriber lines. Among modem users, 45% use 28.8/33.6Kbps while 56Kbps access make up 41 percent of the market.

Meanwhile Microsoft said that Media Metrix (http://www.mediametrix.com) measured a 909% increase in unique visitors to its WindowsMedia.com (http://www.windowsmedia.com) site. It attracted 3.9 million unique visitors in November1999.

The streaming media measurement field is gaining some momentum now as the top three measurement companies (Arbitron, Media Metrix and Nielsen/NetRatings) are all starting to measure streaming media usage.

Nielsen//NetRatings collects data from more than 38,000 panelists as they use the Internet at home.