MEDIA-I: Girls visit entertainment sites most

<p>HONG KONG: When it comes to spending time online, girls just want to </p><p>have fun. A recent survey by Nielsen//NetRatings found a </p><p>disproportionate number of girls under the age of 17 visiting online </p><p>magazines, entertainment and streaming media download sites. Yes.com.hk, </p><p>hkflash.com and quickflicks.com registered the strongest skew towards </p><p>young female surfers. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The researcher found of all Hong Kong web surfers visiting yes.com.hk in </p><p>April, the largest group were girls under 17, comprising 40 per cent of </p><p>total visitors to the domain, and the strongest skew towards this group </p><p>of all domains. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The second, according to Nielsen//NetRatings was hkflash.com, with 35 </p><p>per cent of its web surfer girls in the same age bracket. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Quickflicks.com ranked third, with 34 per cent of its visitors from the </p><p>target group. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>ACNielsen eRatings.com Hong Kong managing director, Hugh Bloch, said: </p><p>"Of the top 10 domains with the strongest skew towards this young female </p><p>group, six of them offer chat rooms and are entertainment or </p><p>entertainment related. It is clear that girls in Hong Kong use the </p><p>internet for more social and entertainment purposes thanany other group. </p><p>They are also accessing online popular young magazines. In short, Hong </p><p>Kong gals just wanna have fun." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>The researcher also found net surfers in Asia-Pacific to be the most </p><p>active users of the web. It added the worldwide web population had grown </p><p>to 390 million people, an increase of 10 million over the previous </p><p>month. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Bloch said: "Surfers in South Korea, Taiwan - and to a lesser extent </p><p>Hong Kong - are still exhibiting behaviour typical of early internet </p><p>markets. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"This includes spending longer, browsing the web to learn the landscape </p><p>and navigating from site to site. Over time, we would expect surfers in </p><p>these markets to identify the sites which meet their needs." </p><p><BR><BR> </p>