Two press releases from 11th April. The first is from Disney: 'Disney Online Continues Its Digital Dominance as the #1 Kids and Family Online Destination, Breaks Traffic Records in First Quarter 2008'. The second is from Nickelodeon: 'Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family's Digital Group Has Record-Breaking Month Online and Establishes Itself as Number-One Kids and Family Online Destination'. Deciding who's correct is beyond our brief, but there's some good news on their respective virtual worlds nonetheless.
Let’s deal with the claimed figures first though. Disney says it attracted more than 27.3 million unique visitors a month during the first quarter to its Disney Online destination - “well above its closest competitor, Nickelodeon Kids & Family Network sites” - while in March 2008, unique visitors to Disney Online and its separate family-focused sites totalled 29.6 million.
Nickelodeon now, which says that its digital sites attracted 27.9 million unique users in March 2008, “besting nearest competitor Disney Online by +2%”. Both are using comScore Media Metrix data to prove their respective points, and it’s a measure of the intense competition between them that they’re keen to claim top spot.
Anyway, the good news is that virtual worlds are playing a key role in both companies’ growth. Disney specifically cites Club Penguin and Pirates Of The Caribbean Online as two of its most popular content offerings. Meanwhile, Nickelodeon trumpeted the performance of its Neopets world, with visitors increasing their time spent on the site month-by-month by 27%, to an average of more than three hours each during March.
Both companies have plans to launch more virtual worlds in the coming months, so it seems the battle is set to rage on. It’ll be interesting to see if more engagement metrics (particularly time spent) come into play alongside pure visitor numbers, too.
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