Filed under: Internet, Google, Microsoft
You spend more time on MSN Messenger than ANYTHING else
To some of you, this might be a shock. To the rest of you that prey on poor, unsuspecting girls with webcams... not so surprised.Apparently 14.5% of all online time is spent on MSN Live Messenger -- 14.5% of 27 billion total hours.
To put it into perspective, the next biggest service is Facebook at at 5.2% with YouTube coming in third at 4.4% (and Google's biggest slice of the online pie.)
One has to wonder if people with Messenger logged in in the background counts towards the total -- I imagine it does. So the totals are probably somewhat skewed -- but in either case, you can find all of the data on the original comScore report. Perhaps most impressive is Facebook's 200% climb in usage since the same time last year!
[via SeattlePi]
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
quanta said 2:33PM on 11-07-2009
If idle time is counted, it's no wonder WLM has such a high percentage; by default it's set to load on Windows startup. That statistic probably isn't worth the magnetic particles it was written on!
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Monica Dickey said 1:01AM on 11-08-2009
Indeed, and getting rid of the bugger program can be kind of a hassle... I can see almost every windows computer idling counting towards this for sure.
Nick said 2:42PM on 11-07-2009
The worst software package ever!
I hope XMPP and Wave Federation Protocol will break through, at least that is properly multi-platform and open...
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Sebastian Anthony said 4:21PM on 11-07-2009
Agree... let's hope Wave rewrites things significantly :)
r3loaded said 3:43PM on 11-07-2009
I'm always logged in, and my computer is almost always on, so this statistic means diddly squat.
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shibathedog said 3:48PM on 11-07-2009
ya know I see a ton of people online who say "Here is my MSN info" and such but I have never actually met anyone in real life who uses it. Most people just use a phone or facebook. A few are still on AIM - but they mostly use it through a phone.
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sRc said 3:58PM on 11-07-2009
nearly all of my online contacts use MSN, i just have a couple who use only Google Chat. we used it all the time at my last job for communicating with people internally.
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DerfBWH08 said 4:12PM on 11-07-2009
I don't know a single person who uses MSN. Everybody I know has AIM.
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Sebastian Anthony said 4:21PM on 11-07-2009
I think it's actually a national thing -- or endemic. For example, in Czech republic they still use ICQ primarily.
In the UK we use MSN... and in some countries AIM is used!
Instant messaging is still very big -- I guess that's all we can be sure of.
sitruc said 6:26PM on 11-07-2009
I have to agree with, Sebastian Anthony. AIM has dominated in the US for years, but has slipped the past few years as interest has waned. AIM has long been well behind technologically and it is hurting them now. Most of my contacts outside of the US use MS.
cyb said 4:39PM on 11-07-2009
i think the real reason why msn is on top is because msn messenger came on a regular XP install. furthermore, reguardless if you used it or not it would start on boot.
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Quikboy said 4:45PM on 11-07-2009
I think the blogger (Mr. Sebastian Anthony) meant "Windows Live Messenger" not MSN Messenger, right?
Last I checked, MSN Messenger has died years ago, and very few people still use it.
I do use WLM every day though, and it's very handy. Yeah, a lot of my teenage friends use AIM (even though it's so crappy!) but I'm getting more people to try out and switch to WLM and people seem to like it better.
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Sebastian Anthony said 4:52PM on 11-07-2009
I know the difference -- but I used MSN Messenger in the title, and Live Messenger in the body of the entry.
MSN Messenger is antiquated now, but I don't think anyone says 'hey, add me to Live Messenger' -- at least not here in the UK :)
'Live Messenger' just highlights a major revision change really (you can see that it's up to version 14 or so now -- it switched from Messenger to Live Messenger back at V8 I think?
Jamus said 5:19PM on 11-07-2009
It HAS to be counting time that users think they have "quit" the app, but it is really still hogging down in the task bar. I really wish all apps like that would default to truly quitting the app rather than shrinking down and stay running. It is not a problem for me, but I can't tell you how many machines I sit at with junk like that just happily running away....
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Sebastian Anthony said 5:29PM on 11-07-2009
Tell me about it!
They should all have the SETI client built-in or something... actually do something worthwhile...
haydenstreater said 7:10PM on 11-07-2009
would have been nice to see a few well though graphs... but no, not so lucky.
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obo said 7:15PM on 11-07-2009
Doesn't every Xbox 360 run Live Messenger whenever it's logged into XBL?
http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/xbox360/XboxLive/XboxLIVECommunity/Messenger/Messenger.aspx
I can't tell from the comScore data if that was a factor.
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Epon said 9:11PM on 11-07-2009
Exactly... XBL is defa major player in these numbers.
Andrea said 3:53AM on 11-08-2009
No it doesn't. You have to actively couple your Xbox Live account to your Live Messenger account to have you Xbox 360 log into Live Messenger automatically.
Alex Tayra said 8:07PM on 11-07-2009
Nobody use MSN \ AIM in Russia.. ICQ is dominating here.
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