The Online Publishers Association, a nonprofit trade organization, has redesigned and relaunched its Web site at www.online-publishers.org to make information about online publishing more accessible.
“As a trade association, our mission is to advance the business interests of online content sites and be a resource for the advertising community, the press, the government and the public as a destination for research and information about online publishing,” said Pam Horan, president of OPA. “The impetus for the re-design was to continue to enhance the site to make it easier to get access to more comprehensive research and news.”
In one of the biggest changes, the site now offers search capabilities to help users sift through industry news and research. The site’s search engine organizes returns into seven different categories: OPA research, OPA newsletters, OPA press releases, news about the OPA, industry research, industry news and Web pages on the OPA site.
OPA research includes the Internet Activity Index, which measures time spent on the Internet in relation to specific online categories. The study extends over the last four years and provides analytic measures useful to online advertisers.
Another addition to the site is the Member Center, which provides members exclusive access to OPA research and best industry practices. The Members Center will also offer custom research, member event calendars and copies of presentations and materials from OPA events.
Horan said that the site should prove useful to non-members as well – particularly the advertising community. The enhanced search can be used by anyone visiting the site, and much of the research from the OPA is available to non-members.
“If you look at statistics or advertising spending numbers, we’re finding that online publishing continues to be the fastest growing media category in terms of spending, growth, and in terms of amount of time people are spending on the Internet,” asserted Horan. “We’re finding a huge shift over last 4 years from communication to content, and the amount of time that individuals are spending with content [online] is about 46 percent of the time.
“There’s a variety of important metrics that the advertising community is using to analyze [Internet usage], but I think time spent is important because it shows stickiness and engagement.”
