In the last hour I checked the size of the front page of six news web sites New Zealand readers might use. All were tested with using http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com. Here are the results. Stuff is way out in front:
- Fairfax’s Stuff – 1.7MB
- The New Zealand Herald – 450Kb
- The Sydney Morning Herald – 940Kb
- The Australian – 874Kb
- Radio New Zealand News – 88Kb
- ABC News Radio – 294Kb
So you can read the Radio New Zealand News page 200 times and still download less data than a single read of Stuff.
Fairfax’s site is a long way ahead of everything else. The nearest, The Sydney Morning Herald, is another Fairfax property. The problem seems to be company wide.
While these numbers may not be important if you’ve got broadband and an unlimited download plan, they make a huge difference when you are on the end of a slow link or paying through the nose for each megabyte of data. That means mobile or any kind of stingy data plan.
None of the sites attempted to show one of those awful TV style advertisements during this test. I hate to think what they might add to the totals.
Update: The National Business Review weighs in at 398 Kb.
While it might be a big snide to point out that Radio NZ doesn’t have to worry about video, I do think that as a government organisation they take accessibility (beyond vision impairment) seriously. I suspect they’re well aware that there are still Kiwis on dial up connections or (even more) expensive broadband out in the provinces!
Good point. I should also mention the cost of viewing hefty web pages over mobile broadband. When I’m out with a laptop – or even my iPad, the cost of reading a few Stuff pages is higher than buying the printed newspaper.