The top referring sites for the top five image hosting sites during August 2005 included MySpace.com, Xanga.com, LiveJournal, Blogger and MSN Spaces. In July 2005, Nielsen//NetRatings reported that 20 percent of active web users, or 29.3 million people, accessed blogging or blog-related web sites, growing 31 percent since the beginning of the year.

Jon Gibs, Senior Research Manager, Nielsen//NetRatings explained, “The large rise in blogging activity has lifted other web sites, the primary one being image hosting sites. Simple text-based ‘diaries’ have evolved into a more image-oriented presentation.”

     Table 1. Top 5 Image Hosting Web Sites, Jan. vs. Aug. 2005 (Home and Work,     U.S.)     ______________________________________________________________________     Site           Jan 05 UA (000)     Aug 05 UA (000)     Jan-Aug Growth     ______________________________________________________________________     PhotoBucket        1,537               12,241               696%     ______________________________________________________________________     ImageShack         1,150                3,444               199%     ______________________________________________________________________     Putfile.com           —                1,302                 —     ______________________________________________________________________     TinyPic.com           —                  715                 —     ______________________________________________________________________     Imagevenue.com        —                  559                 —     ______________________________________________________________________     Category*          2,912               14,734               406%     ______________________________________________________________________    Source:  Nielsen//NetRatings, September 2005    *Note:  Category is comprised of 50 image hosting Web sites.    Teens Index Higher for Image Hosting Sites

Female teens between the ages of 12 to 17 years indexed the highest out of the age groups broken down by gender. Females between 12 to 17 years were two and a half times more likely to visit an image hosting site than the average site audience, followed by males in the same age group (see Table 2).

“Particularly for the younger demographics where social circles have permeated online, web journals have become just another way of getting to know someone,” said Gibs.

     Table 2. Highest Indexing Age and Gender Groups for Image Hosting Sites     (U.S., Home and Work)     _________________________________________________________________________     Demo Group     Unique Audience (000)    Composition %  Composition Index     _________________________________________________________________________     Female 12 - 17      2,219                    15%              259     _________________________________________________________________________     Male 12 - 17        1,532                    10%              191     _________________________________________________________________________     Male 21 - 24          479                     3%              182     _________________________________________________________________________     Male 18 - 24        1,004                     7%              175     _________________________________________________________________________    Source:  Nielsen//NetRatings, September 2005    *Note:  Demographics are based on a category of 50 image hosting Web            sites.          *********************************************************  

Nielsen//NetRatings reports August 2005 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. In addition, Nielsen//NetRatings reveals the Top Advertisers by Company for August 2005.

Nielsen//NetRatings Top 10 Web Sites by Parent Company and Top 10 Web Sites By Brand, August 2005

     Table 1. Top 10 Parent Companies,       Table 2. Top 10 Brands,     Combined Home and Work                    Combined Home and Work     ____________________________________________________________________     Parent              Unique    Time Per  Brand          Unique   Time Per                        Audience    Person                  Audience  Person                          (000)   (hh:mm:ss)                 (000)  (hh:mm:ss)     ____________________________________________________________________     1. Microsoft        111,231   2:12:46   1. Yahoo!      101,283   3:38:42     ____________________________________________________________________     2. Time Warner      103,023   5:15:56   2. Microsoft    95,621   0:45:44     ____________________________________________________________________     3. Yahoo!           101,521   3:38:52   3. MSN          92,059   1:52:39     ____________________________________________________________________     4. Google            81,653   0:46:55   4. Google       80,354   0:45:40     ____________________________________________________________________     5. eBay              57,757   2:07:30   5. AOL          75,721   6:27:58     ____________________________________________________________________     6. United States                        6. eBay         55,181   2:05:05         Government       55,067   0:27:00     ____________________________________________________________________     7. InterActive-                         7. MapQuest     38,959   0:13:02         Corp             45,745   0:19:53     ____________________________________________________________________     8. Amazon            43,221   0:25:17   8. Amazon       37,644   0:22:30     ____________________________________________________________________     9. RealNetworks      36,957   0:58:43   9. Real         36,362   0:57:53     ____________________________________________________________________     10. Viacom                              10. Weather          International   36,558   1:11:02        Channel    31,176   0:32:32     ____________________________________________________________________  

Example: The data indicates that 36.6 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Viacom International-owned sites or launched a Viacom International-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 1 hour, 11 minutes and 2 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.

A parent company is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. A brand is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content. Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data is expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.

Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance Top 10 Advertisers, August 2005

Top advertisers, ranked by estimated spending, are based on data from AdRelevance, Nielsen//NetRatings’ advertising research service. An impression is counted as the number of times an ad is rendered for viewing.

     Top 10 Advertisers by Estimated Spending     _________________________________________________________________________     Advertiser                    Total Estimated Spending  Impressions (000)     _________________________________________________________________________     1.  United Online, Inc.            $18,062,500             5,317,932     _________________________________________________________________________     2.  LowerMyBills.com, Inc.         $15,309,300             3,766,517     _________________________________________________________________________     3.  Vonage Holdings Corp           $14,165,400             3,130,147     _________________________________________________________________________     4.  Apollo Group, Inc.             $13,570,100             3,384,091     _________________________________________________________________________     5.  Dell Computer Corporation       $9,884,300             2,769,026     _________________________________________________________________________     6.  NexTag.com                      $9,166,800             2,143,043     _________________________________________________________________________     7.  Netflix, Inc.                   $8,995,100             1,910,061     _________________________________________________________________________     8.  Orbitz                          $8,318,200             1,132,212     _________________________________________________________________________     9.  Verizon Communications, Inc.    $7,978,000             1,900,260     _________________________________________________________________________     10. Scottrade, Inc.                 $7,926,200             1,821,289     _________________________________________________________________________  

Estimated spending reflects CPM-based advertising only, and excludes search-based advertising, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, partnership advertising, advertorials, promotions, email and direct response. Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser’s own Web property.

Example: An estimated 1.8 billion Scottrade, Inc. ads were rendered for viewing at the cost of approximately $7.9 million during the surfing period.

For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.