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February 21, 2007

According to new numbers published by Internet traffic metrics firm Nielsen//NetRatings, Google Docs & Spreadsheets have captured a very good percentage of online productivity applications since October of last year.

Collectively, Google's new Docs and Spreadsheets had 445,763 unique visitors in Oct. 2006. These are users that spent an average of ten minutes on the site.

This represents about 92 percent of visitors and 95 percent of time spent that month across all the major providers of Web-based productivity tools, a list that include EditGrid, Zoho.com, ThinkFree.com, NumSum.com and WriteBoard, among others.

Since then, Nielsen//NetRatings reports that growth has been rather flat. Google Docs & Spreadsheets attracted 424,785 unique visitors in November and an average of 432,156 in December 2006.

The average visit length has increased from ten minutes in October to fourteen minutes in December.

Jon Stewart, senior analyst at Nielsen//NetRatings, said in a statement "Internet-based productivity software further expands people's use of the Web browser beyond Web site visitation, and clearly demonstrates how the collaborative power of the Web is bringing "traditionally" offline activities online."

"Google has consistently capitalized on its devoted audience and wide brand recognition to rapidly gain traction in this area, but there's clearly a lot of room for growth," Stewart added.

Google's growing audience turns out to be rather well-capitalized itself. Some 28 percent of Google Docs & Spreadsheet users earn more than $100,000 annually, and 76 percent earn at least $50,000 annually.

Naturally, the ability to pay doesn't diminish the appeal of something that is free, reliable and works very well.

Despite the growing popularity of similar online productivity applications, Stewart doesn't see Google or other online office application providers threatening Microsoft anytime soon.

"In time, Internet-based productivity tools will probably become as widespread as traditional software from companies like Microsoft," Stewart said.

But at the same time, he was quick to point out that "they clearly have little to fear in the immediate future, given the relatively low penetration numbers that we're seeing."

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Source: Information Week