Excite Inc is excited that Media Metrix named it the fastest growing portal and the sixth fastest growing of all web sites. It needn’t be. What Media Metrix in fact reported was that sites offering personal homepages dominate the list of fast-growing web properties measured by unique audience reach. Angelfire, Xoom, TheGlobe, Hotmail, Tripod, GeoCities and ICQ performed at least as well if not better than the excitable search engine, and don’t forget, both Angelfire and Tripod are owned by Excite’s arch- rival Lycos Inc. Meanwhile Media Metrix’s July rankings are out, with as few upsets as ever. AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft were the top three ports of call for home users last month, while Yahoo, Microsoft and Netscape dominated accesses from work. The survey also found that, since June, home web users have been spending an additional 30 minutes online, up from 3.5 to 4 hours in July. What a way to spend the summer.
