Google, Facebook, YouTube are most visited websites in 2011

Google, Facebook and YouTube racked up the most unique visitors among U.S. websites in 2011, according to new data from the research group Nielsen.

Not necessarily the most surprising news is it? What may be a bit more interesting is that, despite its rapid growth, Google+ was on average visited by fewer users than Myspace this year, according to Nielsen. Google+ was released in beta in July and opened to the public in September.

The Nielsen data also doesn't cover the entire year, only January to October.

According to Nielsen, the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs, by page views, in 2011 were:

1. Facebook -- 137.6 million average page views per month

2. Blogger -- 45.5 million average page views per month

3. Twitter.com -- 23.6 million average page views per month

4. WordPress.com -- 20.4 million average page views per month

5. Myspace.com -- 17.9 million average page views per month

6. LinkedIn -- 17 million average page views per month

7. Tumblr -- 10.9 million average page views per month

8. Google+ -- 8.2 million average page views per month

9. Yahoo! Pulse -- 8 million average page views per month

10. Six Apart/TypePad -- 7 million average page views per month

Nielsen also reported that the 10 most visited overall U.S. Web brands in 2011 were:

1. Google -- 153.4 million average page views per month

2. Facebook -- 137.6 million average page views per month

3. Yahoo! -- 130.1 million average page views per month

4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing -- 115.9 million average page views per month

5. YouTube -- 106.7 million average page views per month

6. Microsoft -- 83.8 million average page views per month

7. AOL Media Network -- 74.6 million average page views per month

8. Wikipedia -- 62 million average page views per month

9. Apple -- 61.6 million average page views per month

10. Ask Search Network -- 60.5 million average page views per month

 And finally, the top 10 U.S. Web brands for video, according to Nielsen's data:

1. YouTube -- 111.1 million average page views per month

2. Vevo -- 34.6 million average page views per month

3. Facebook -- 29.8 million average page views per month

4. Yahoo! -- 25.3 million average page views per month

5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing -- 16.6 million average page views per month

6. AOL Media Network -- 13.3 million average page views per month

7. Hulu -- 13.1 million average page views per month

8. The CollegeHumor Network -- 12.5 million average page views per month

9. CNN Digital Network -- 8.3 million average page views per month

10. Netflix -- 7.4 million average page views per month

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+

Twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screen shot of plus.google.com. Credit: Google

AOL executive Brad Garlinghouse confirms he's quitting

Brad Garlinghouse, a Silicon Valley executive brought in to help turn around AOL in 2009, is leaving the struggling Internet company, he confirmed Wednesday.

"Hard decision as I'm leaving a bunch of awesome people -- working on some very good stuff -- but decided it was time," Garlinghouse said in an email.

Garlinghouse headed AOL's Silicon Valley operations. He is the latest executive to leave the New York company, which has been fighting to transform itself into a more competitive digital property even as it cedes ground and cachet to Facebook and other newcomers.

Garlinghouse worked at Yahoo and Silver Lake Partners and is well regarded in Silicon Valley. His departure is a blow to the turnaround effort led by AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong. AOL shares have slipped 37% this year.

Garlinghouse became famous at Yahoo for a memo he sent to the company's management that came to be known as the "Peanut Butter Manifesto" in which he took Yahoo to task for spreading itself too thin across too many businesses.

His departure from AOL was first reported by technology blog GigaOm. An AOL spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

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Image: A screenshot of Aol.com. Credit: Aol

Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo team up in online ad deal

In a testament to how powerful Google and Facebook have become as Internet moneymaking machines, Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are joining forces to sell advertising.

In a deal announced Tuesday, the three tech giants said they would pool their resources to sell leftover ad space beginning in January.

They pledged to continue to compete and maintain their own sales teams. Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL are looking to avoid the appearance they are forgoing their independence and avoid drawing scrutiny from antitrust regulators.

The effort is aimed at slowing the growing momentum of Facebook, which has become attractive to advertisers as the world's most popular online hangout. Research firm EMarketer says Facebook is already the leader in U.S. display advertising with a 16% share of the online ad market.

Google, the world's dominant search engine, spread its tentacles into display advertising with its 2008 purchase of DoubleClick. Its share of the display advertising market has jumped to 9% today from 2% in 2008. During that same period, Yahoo saw its share fall to 13% from 18%. Microsoft has 5% and AOL has about 4%, according to EMarketer.

The value of ads on AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo have slipped with rising competition from Google and Facebook. The three partners are hoping to drive up the price advertisers are paying for page views.

With Yahoo's revenue declining, the company's board is exploring whether to sell all or part of the company. Microsoft, on the other hand, benefits from Facebook's success: It bought a 1.6% stake in the social networking juggernaut for $240 million in 2007.

The advertising alliance gives the three companies the right to sell each other's excess ad space. The partners said the deal was not exclusive and would be open to other publishers. The three companies will integrate their real-time bidding technologies.

"While this collaboration could drive some incremental yield improvements for the portals' unsold display inventory, we believe it is unlikely that the combination of inventory can spur significant increases in overall display ad revenue given market share challenges," J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said in a research note. "We believe this agreement comes more from a position of weakness as all three players attempt to create a compelling alternative to Google for marketers and agencies."

Anmuth said Google's vast network of more than 1 million advertisers makes it easy for them to reach large audiences. Google also offers targeting and measurement tools that "are appealing to performance-based advertisers," he said.

Anmuth estimates that Google's display revenue will gross $3.8 billion in 2011, compared with $1.9 billion for Yahoo.

In an interesting twist, he said the alliance would help Google in antitrust probes because the Internet search giant can point to it as an example of credible competition in online ads.

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-- Jessica Guynn

Photo: A Google office in Brussels. Credit: Virginia Mayo / Associated Press 

Apps that are child's play for iPhone and iPad

While there are numerous reasons to not use your handy tech devices with your little ones -- developmental and hygienic -- some of us find exposure to the ubiquitous small screens unavoidable.

Although in my family we do try to limit our use of digital devices, with a preference for face-to-face and real-world interactions, my 5-month-old has become familiar enough with the smartphones and tablets in our household that he can scroll, swipe and perform several multi-touch actions.

It's not that we have tried to show him any of this, but we use the devices so often to shoot photos and video of his every move and Skype with his grandmother, who lives out of town. Because he has quickly adapted to them, I have acquiesced somewhat and created a folder on my phone with apps just for him.

I'm more interested in saving money for his college (or heck, even preschool) than spending on apps and in having him engage with the real world than focus on a small glowing screen. So the apps that I do use with my son, first, are free or cheap, and second, are less about bells and whistles and killer graphics than they are about encouraging engagement and reinforcing experiences with a causal connection.

Here are five apps (with a few bonus items) in my baby's folder on my iPhone and iPad:

1. Animal Sounds for Baby: Fisher Price offers three free Laugh & Learn iPhone/iPod apps designed for babies ages 6 months and up. Among them is this, featuring a selection of animated animals that smile, dance and growl, quack or make their other appropriate sounds. Your child can get a response from the animal by tapping, tilting and shaking the screen.

A cheerful woman's voice says the name of the animal as it is highlighted on the screen. (I usually join her.) After a series of animals, there's a catchy little song and dance.

The app runs through two groups of animals and then repeats. (Honestly, though, I can usually make it through only about two reps before the song takes root in my head.)

There's also Let's Count Animals! for Baby using the same animals from the former app to demonstrate counting from 1 to 5 and Where's Puppy's Nose? for Baby to playfully demonstrate where the nose, ears, eyes, mouth, tummy, head, hands and feet are.

 

Michael Arrington has a new blog, scolds TechCrunch editor

Michael Arrington may be out of TechCrunch and AOL, but that doesn't mean he'll stop blogging.

Arrington, who founded the TechCrunch blog as an angel investor in 2005, announced on Twitter on Thursday morning that he'll be going out on his own for now, tweeting:

"I'll be launching my new (personal) blog in a couple of days."

Paul Carr, a freelance writer for TechCrunch and author, responded to Arrington asking if he can get in on the new personal blog, tweeting:

"@arrington can I write the weekend posts on your tumblr?"

Arrington wrote back on Twitter, poking fun at AOL's head of online content, Arianna Huffington, and TechCrunch's new top editor, Erick Schonfeld.

"@paulcarr I'm not sure the journo police will allow that. Will ask Erick to ask Arianna if that's ok."

Carr might not be simply joking about following Arrington to his new blog eventually. The writer lashed out at AOL and its CEO Tim Armstrong, in a post on TechCrunch, for its handling of criticism that was directed toward Arrington and TechCrunch when Arrington and Armstrong announced the formation of a venture fund called CrunchFund.

It was Arrington's involvement in CrunchFund (he's running it) that cost him his job at TechCrunch as co-editor with Schonfeld. AOL had said that its tech reporters can't also be tech investors. AOL, however, is the main investor in Arrington's CrunchFund.

The back-and-forth between Carr and Arrington isn't the first time the TechCrunch founder has criticized AOL, which bought TechCrunch in Sept. 2010 for as much as $40 million, and his former co-editor Schonfeld since the break-up.

On Monday, at AOL's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Arrington appeared on stage wearing a green T-shirt printed with the text "unpaid blogger." The T-shirt was a jab at AOL and Huffington, which after announcing he was fired from his job as TechCrunch's co-editor said he might contribute as an unpaid writer from time to time. A photo of Arrington in that T-shirt is his Facebook profile picture.

On Wednesday, Schonfeld named the finalists in a start-up competition at the Disrupt conference in a TechCrunch blog post. In naming the finalists, Schonfeld added in a few sentences trying to make clear Arrington's involvement in the process or lack there of, writing:

(In the spirit of disclosure, two of the companies, Bitcasa and Prism Skylabs, are CrunchFund investments, but we didn't hold that against them. Along with the other finalists, the judges scored them the highest. The CrunchFund is Michael Arrington's new venture fund. He was not involved in the final selection of these companies).

Arrington, in a comment on that blog post, said that Schonfeld wasn't being honest about his involvement in the process of selecting the finalists.

Erick, I'm still an Aol employee through tomorrow (15th). Also, as you know I had significant input into this list of finalists and spoke to Heather for over an hour last night about them. My final list is somewhat different from this one, though, but we agree on four of the companies.

Please be careful making statements on my behalf. And remember that reader trust is what matters. You shouldn't say "he was not involved in the final selection of these companies" just because it sounds nice. Since it isn't true, you shouldn't say it at all.

Also, going forward, I don't know if I'll be disclosing our investments to TechCrunch.

On Thursday, Barry Diller, chairman of InterActiveCorp., which owns 50% of the Newsweek/Daily Beast, said that AOL's firing of Arrington for investing in tech start-ups was a move that robbed TechCrunch of its unique voice, which was Arrington's voice.

Here's a transcript of Diller's statement, as reported by TechCrunch:

You buy it because it is absolutely the voice of a single person primarily, with some other people working for him -- but it's Michael Arrington's voice, and you know when you buy it, that that voice is biased and mean and capable of saying anything, and is playing a hundred different games. And you know that. And that's why you buy it — because it's a good voice, and you like it. This is, to me, the definition of that rocket going up and then getting underneath…

And then somebody calls you up and says, "I'm the Editor in Chief, and you can't let him do that, because he’s now in a conflict of interest."

Instead of saying, "Shut up and go back to your room"… and it's not because you don't respect journalism, it's because this has nothing to do with that. To apply that standard to something where the guy says, "I'm filled with conflicts. You don't have to listen, you don't have to read me. Take the stuff for whatever it’s worth."

It’s not a journalistic enterprise, TechCrunch. And so to have treated it as such is to destroy it. So now, he's gone, and now they own this thing, which has no voice. Congratulations. What a good piece of business.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

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Image: A screen shot of Michael Arrington's Facebook profile page. Credit: Michael Arrington / Facebook

Ashton Kutcher talks 'Two and a Half Men' and tech investing

Ashton Kutcher probably gets more pitches in Silicon Valley than Hollywood these days.

The movie actor and technology investor turned up the star power at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this week in San Francisco, where start-up companies competed for his attention. Michael Arrington, fresh off his own Hollywood worthy drama, interviewed Kutcher on stage Tuesday.

Kutcher plays a tech investor in real life and in CBS' top-rated "Two and a Half Men" on TV. His character, Walden Schmidt, is an Internet billonaire who sold his company to Microsoft and now backs other entrepreneurs.

"There are some parallels to my actual life," Kutcher said.

On the show, Kutcher said he covered his character's laptop with stickers of his "dream portfolio" companies but CBS balked at giving exposure to companies that hadn't paid for the privilege.

Kutcher told Arrington that his investments were a "witch hunt" for the next big thing "that is so magic you can't understand how it works."

"I wonder what would happen if a pilgrim would have seen a computer back in Massachusetts 200 years ago. They would have killed the person as a witch because the computer would look like magic. That's the essence of being a good investor, they're on witch hunts," he said. "That's what I’m trying to do."

Kutcher is not your typical celebrity investor. He was a biochemical engineering major in college so he gets technology but, because he was a model at 19, he says it's nice to be appreciated for "something substantial."

On TV Kutcher is in the funny business. But in technology he's hunting for happiness. Kutcher says he picks technologies that have the greatest potential to create more love, friendship and connectivity in the world.

He has made 40 investments in companies such as AirBNB, Path and Skype but does not disclose many of them.

"I think sometimes for the early-stage companies that I've invested in, disclosing that I'm an investor can be detrimental to the story of the company," Kutcher said.

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Photo: Hollywood actor and Silicon Valley investor Ashton Kutcher and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington at TechCrunch Disrupt. Credit: Araya Diaz / Getty Images

Michael Arrington: Ex-TechCrunch, and now ex-AOL employee, too

After two weeks of drama, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington, is now officially out at the popular tech blog, and he's no longer an AOL employee.

AOL formally announced his departure on Monday in an emailed statement. Arrington too announced his exit from TechCrunch and AOL at the company's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco on Monday, wearing a green T-shirt that read "unpaid blogger." The T-shirt was a jab at AOL, which after announcing he was fired from his job as TechCrunch's co-editor said he might contribute as an unpaid writer from time to time.

"The TechCrunch acquisition has been a success for AOL and for our shareholders, and we are very excited about its future," said Maureen Sullivan, an AOL spokeswoman, in an email to The Times. "Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, has decided to move on from TechCrunch and AOL to his newly formed venture fund. Michael is a world-class entrepreneur and we look forward to supporting his new endeavor through our investment in his venture fund. Erick Schonfeld has been named the editor of TechCrunch. TechCrunch will be expanding its editorial leadership in the coming months."

Schonfeld was Arrington's co-editor. Arrington explained the departure a little bit differently at TechCrunch Disrupt.

"It's no longer a good situation for me to stay at TechCrunch," Arrington said at the conference, according to a report from the website Business Insider. "Effective in a couple of days, I won't be an employee of TechCrunch or AOL. I will continue to run the CrunchFund and AOL will remain a partner in CrunchFund. I will continue to support this conference and TechCrunch over time."

Arrington's new venture fund is, of course, CrunchFund, the $20-million venture fund that is backed by many of Silicon Valley's most influential investors. AOL is CrunchFund's biggest investor.

It was the formation of the CrunchFund that kicked off the aforementioned drama that has led to Arrington's exit.

On Sept. 1, Arrington and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong excitedly announced that CrunchFund was a go and would invest in rising start-ups. CrunchFund, and Arrington's involvement in it, raised the ire of many on the blogosphere and mainstream media, citing possible ethical concerns over Arrington being a venture capitalist who could invest in some of the companies that TechCrunch itself covers.

On Sept. 2, AOL announced that Arrington was no longer a TechCrunch employee, but would still work for AOL in some capacity and occasionally blog for TechCrunch unpaid.

TechCrunch reporters were unhappy with how the matter -- which put a spotlight on TechCrunch's own ethical standards -- unfolded in the press, and they blogged about their frustration on TechCrunch itself, with an eye of anger toward AOL CEO Armstrong, who said the site had different editoral practices than other AOL publications.

After word leaked that Arrington was out at TechCrunch, Arrington issued an ultimatum to AOL stating that he would leave if the company didn't sell the blog back to him or let him keep his job as co-editor.

With Arrington out, questions now remain over how that will or won't affect TechCrunch's roster of reporters, some of whom have stated they'd leave if Arrington leaves.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Michael Arrington in 2008. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times

AOL in talks with Yahoo about possible merger, report says

AOL Inc. is discussing a possible deal with Yahoo Inc. to combine the two companies following the ouster of former Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz, a report says.

Tim Armstrong, AOL's chief executive, is talking to Yahoo advisors from private equity firms and investment banks about possible options for a merger, Bloomberg News reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Armstrong had been interested in a merger with Yahoo last year, when Bartz was still CEO, but was ultimately rebuffed by the company, Bloomberg said. He is now reconsidering the possibility as a way to bolster both tech companies, the report said. One option includes Yahoo acquiring AOL, with Armstrong at the helm of the combined company as chief executive.

But Bloomberg cited one person who said Yahoo is unlikely to be interested at this time in a deal with AOL, considering the company's declining revenue and heavy losses. Yahoo's market value, at about $18.2 billion, is more than 11 times than that of AOL's at $1.6 billion.

Yahoo and AOL have been losing revenue as the Internet evolved and competitors such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. took advertising dollars away.

Yahoo, once a leader in the online advertising world, rejected a $47.5-billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. in 2008. Bartz was hired afterward and then abruptly fired this week after years of declining revenue growth. Internet pioneer AOL has also struggled, losing almost $800 million since it was spun off from Time Warner Inc. in 2009.

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Photo: A woman walks by AOL's corporate headquarters on Broadway in May 2009 in New York City. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

Michael Arrington's fight with AOL over TechCrunch gets animated [Video]

It was likely bound to happen.

Taiwan's Next Media Animation, the quirky company that makes odd videos of just about any big news story out there, has made a short depicting its take on the fight between Michael Arrington and AOL over the direction of the popular blog TechCrunch.

The dispute, which has been covered at The Times by my colleague Jessica Guynn since last week, centers around Arrington, TechCrunch's founder and co-editor, starting a venture capital fund called the CrunchFund. CrunchFund's biggest investor is AOL.

But AOL's policy is that its journalists can't also be venture capitalists. So Arrington was fired from AOL, which angered TechCrunch writers. And now, as pointed out in the video below, Arrington is threatening to quit a job he's already been fired from.

In the computer-animated video, Arrington wears a green coat and witch's hat and, at times, a choker with an AOL logo on it.

Later in the clip, he gets sprayed with paintballs held by gun-toting journalists calling him out on the ethical problems associated with being both a tech reporter and an tech investor.

Arianna Huffington, who oversees all of AOL's online content and is reportedly the person who decided to fire Arrington last week, appears in the video in flames over her anger at the situation.

Tim Armstrong, AOL's chief executive, is depicted as trying to protect Arrington from Huffington's anger and she kicks and punches the two men.

Yup, nobody tells a story quite like Next Media.

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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Top image: A screen shot of a flaming Arianna Huffington, president and editor in chief of AOL's Huffington Post Media Group; AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong; and a green-cloaked Michael Arrington. Credit: Next Media Animation

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington issues ultimatum to AOL

Michael Arrington is slated to be in San Francisco next week for TechCrunch's Disrupt conference.

Disrupting is certainly an art that Arrington has mastered. And now he's giving his AOL overlords (and Arianna Huffington) the Imax version.

His ultimatum on Monday: that AOL restore editorial independence to the popular tech blog or sell TechCrunch back to Arrington, the newly minted venture capitalist (who apparently would need funding to buy it; might we suggest the CrunchFund). If not, Arrington says he'll quit (the job he was already ousted from).

TechCrunch's MG Siegler says that TechCrunch may formally dump Arrington on Monday. "TechCrunch is on the precipice," he wrote in a blog post on -- where else -- TechCrunch. All Things D's Kara Swisher, who has a sweet spot for the blogger she has dubbed Yertle, says Arrington is lobbying AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong (who famously told the New York Times that TechCrunch has different journalistic standards than the rest of AOL's media properties) to sell him back TechCrunch.

Arrington could not be reached for comment. Usually desperate for attention, AOL has clammed up even as this public relations nightmare marches into its second week with a fresh head of steam.

A recap: Last week Huffington bounced Arrington from TechCrunch after he and her boss, Armstrong, unveiled plans to launch a venture fund with a high-profile group of Silicon Valley investors, a move that Gawker calls hypocritical because Huffington has closed her eyes to other conflicts of interest.

Arrington and other TechCrunch writers are protesting; they say AOL promised TechCrunch editorial independence. AOL bought TechCrunch a year ago for $30 million.

On Monday, Arrington said he had just one magnet on his refrigerator: "No drama." (If not drama, perhaps comedy?)

"So," he deadpanned on Facebook, "don't say I didn't try."

Now all the tech world can do is wait for AOL's next move. And pass the popcorn.

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 Photo: Michael Arrington in 2008. Credit: Randi Lynn Beach / For The Times