Akamai Takes The Wraps Off Digital Music Net Usage Index
Akamai Technologies, Inc., a leading global service provider for accelerating online content distribution, has released the Akamai Net Usage Index for Digital Music. The index tracks and benchmarks global Web usage patterns of visitors to more than 40 digital music websites, including music download sites, music destination sites, and live radio broadcast services, such as XM Satellite Radio, Clear Channel, Premiere Radio, MTV, Rediff.com and Napster, among others.
Data collected from the Index over the past three months shows key geographic patterns and insight into Web traffic trends associated with downloaded and streamed digital music:
• North America, Asia, and Europe represent the bulk of visitor traffic to these sites
• Daily peak traffic worldwide is more than half a million visitors per minute
• Traffic peaks in North America and Europe tend to occur mid-week, while peaks in Asia and Australia come toward the end of the week
• Sunday is consistently the slowest day for visitors to these sites
The Akamai Net Usage Index for Digital Music provides a global aggregate view of total visitors per minute, as well as a detailed view by continent, from a collection of digital music sites delivered by Akamai. All of the sites included in the index provide digital music streaming or downloads as their core business. Akamai’s Net Usage Index offers businesses real-time information about the usage habits of visitors to their sites, and an industry benchmark to measure against. Anyone interested in data from the Index can view an aggregate, real-time view of Web traffic patterns online — which is pretty cool to check out!
Separately, Akamai conducted a survey of online consumers to better understand their digital music habits. Respondents ranged in age from 19 to 68 with a survey base of 200 people, 58% female and 41% male. Individuals were questioned on how often they download music, how much they spend on music downloads, where and when they stream music online, where they listen to music downloads, and how many sources of online music they use. Survey data revealed:
• 86% of respondents own a portable music device
• 76% of respondents spend $1-$5 on music downloads a week; 14% spend $5-$10; 9% spend $10-$20 a week. 90% of these respondents buy at least one song per week
• 82% of respondents prefer a pay-per-download model; 9% prefer ad-sponsored; and 9% chose subscription as their model of choice
• 55% of respondents listen to streaming music online, and 65% of those listen during the work day
• 42% of respondents are loyal to only one digital music source; 29% use two; and one respondent used 43 different sources for online music
“Not only has the Internet quickly evolved into a key distribution channel for music, it’s dramatically changing the way consumers learn about, share, and buy music online,” said Brad Rinklin, vice president of Marketing at Akamai. “The Internet offers a platform to dramatically expand the global footprint artists and labels have to promote, distribute, and sell music, videos, and other rich media assets to millions of potential listeners and buyers. The Net Usage Index for Digital Music data will help the industry by providing empirical data on consumer behavior and online music.”
The online music market is expected to increase sevenfold by 2010, with revenues from music downloads and subscription services expected to top CD sales on the Web by next year, according to In-Stat Research. Given these projections, online music services need a robust, distributed infrastructure to handle growing user demand. Akamai is uniquely positioned to meet digital music distribution demands through its network of more than 20,000 servers worldwide that optimize access to popular content and ensure reliability and performance.
The Akamai Net Usage Index for Digital Music complements indices already available for News and Retail use online. Each index tracks online consumption for websites across a representative set of Akamai customers. Akamai’s Indices do not release specific customer data, but show an aggregate view of web traffic to the sites that Akamai supports. As with the other Indices, there is a downloadable widget available.
More information on the Akamai Digital Music Net Usage Index.
