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RESTON, Va., Sept. 16 /-/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for August 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The Olympics and the U.S. Presidential campaign were the main drivers of Internet activity during the month, resulting in strong gains at politics, sports, news and humor sites. The start of another academic year resulted in growth at education and retail - consumer goods sites.
"The Olympics dominated the headlines in August, and Americans' Internet activity reflected their keen interest in their country's performance at the games," commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "With the time difference between Beijing and the U.S. creating a substantial lag between many of the live events and their subsequent national broadcast, the Internet was especially critical in keeping Americans current with the latest event results and medal counts."
Political Party Conventions and Campaign Activity Drive Traffic to Political Sites
As the Democratic National Convention closed out the month of August with the Republican National Convention following on its heels, the politics category surged 33 percent to 14 million visitors as many Americans directed their attention to this historic Presidential contest. The category, which was the fastest growing for the month, was led by BarackObama.com with nearly 4 million visitors (up 113 percent from July), while JohnMcCain.com climbed 108 percent to 1.4 million visitors.
The entertainment - humor category also witnessed strong gains this month, growing 12 percent to 16.5 million visitors, in part due to the success of a viral comedy video relating to the presidential race. Comedic video site FunnyOrDie.com jumped 256 percent to 2.4 million visitors as people flocked to the site to view Paris Hilton's video response to John McCain's 'Celebrity' ad, which featured Hilton as a way of deriding Senator Obama's celebrity status.
Olympics Drives Surge at Sports and News Sites
The Olympics was a significant driver of Internet activity during the month of August, with official Olympic site Beijing2008.cn capturing the top spot among the fastest-gaining properties during the month. The site realized a twelvefold increase in August with 5.8 million visitors.
The Olympics generated the most substantial gains in the sports and news categories. Sports grew 26 percent to more than 93 million visitors in August, led by Yahoo! Sports with 38.5 million visitors (up 76 percent), NBC Sports with 23.8 million visitors (up 740 percent) and ESPN with 22 million visitors (up 23 percent). The category also benefitted from pre-season interest in the 2008 NFL season.
Meanwhile, general news sites grew 10 percent to 105 million visitors. MSNBC led the category with 44.5 million visitors (up 53 percent), with much of the site's increase due to the flood of visitors to NBCOlympics.com site. Yahoo! News, ranking second in the category, grew 15 percent to 44.3 million visitors, while CNN ranked third with more than 32 million visitors (up 12 percent).
Back to School Season Prompts Growth to Education and Consumer Goods Sites
August marked the beginning of another school year for many students, resulting in gains to education and retail - consumer goods sites. Education sites grew 9 percent to 96 million visitors, with each of the five most- visited sites in the category experiencing double-digit growth during the month. The category was led by Dictionary.com with 10.9 million visitors (up 24 percent), followed by Pearson Education with 9.9 million visitors (up 30 percent) and Answers.com with 8.4 million visitors (up 26 percent).
The retail - consumer goods category grew 9 percent to 24.6 million visitors, propelled by large increases at several office supplies sites. Category-leader Staples.com Sites jumped 22 percent to nearly 8 million visitors, while Office Depot increased 10 percent to 5.3 million visitors and OfficeMax increased 39 percent to 2.6 million visitors.
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites maintained its #1 position in the Top Properties ranking, reaching 144.7 million Americans in August, while Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 141.5 million visitors and Microsoft Sites ranked third with 123.5 million visitors. Target Corporation and Bank of America both climbed three spots this month with Target rising to #22 with 30.5 million visitors and Bank of America reaching #30 with 25.6 million visitors. The beginning of football season helped propel ESPN seven positions to #36 with more than 22 million visitors. Answers.com Sites (#45), WorldNow -- ABC Owned Sites (#47) and NBC Universal (#50) each entered the rankings this month.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform-A, which includes Advertising.com, Quigo and other ad networks, led the Ad Focus ranking in August, reaching 90 percent of the nearly 189 million Americans online. Google Ad Network moved up one spot in the ranking, capturing the second position with a reach of 156.4 million visitors. Yahoo! Network claimed the third spot reaching 156.2 million visitors in August.
TABLE 1
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors* (U.S.)
August 2008 vs. July 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-08 Aug-08 % Change Rank by Unique
Visitors
Total Internet :
Total Audience 189,134 188,937 0 N/A
BEIJING2008.CN 459 5,832 1,171 193
Activision Blizzard 1,174 4,566 289 249
NFL Internet Group 7,482 13,902 86 69
HotChalk Network 3,622 6,239 72 176
Kohls Corporation 7,568 13,016 72 75
Cablevision 4,134 5,924 43 188
Mevio Network 3,890 5,547 43 201
Symantec 5,298 7,531 42 139
Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. 3,503 4,675 33 242
Buzznet 6,772 8,991 33 113
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2008
TABLE 2
comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors
(U.S.)
August 2008 vs. July 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-08 Aug-08 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 189,134 188,937 0
Politics 10,576 14,040 33
Sports 74,109 93,307 26
Humor 23,542 26,464 12
Online Gambling 12,648 14,215 12
Retail - Music 17,890 20,061 12
Online Gaming 74,165 82,279 11
General News 95,321 104,969 10
Consumer Goods 22,455 24,577 9
Education 88,171 96,017 9
Gay/Lesbian 2,526 2,748 9
TABLE3
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)
August 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank Property Unique Visitors (000)
Total Internet:
Total Audience 188,937
1 Google Sites 144,738
2 Yahoo! Sites 141,549
3 Microsoft Sites 123,466
4 AOL LLC 110,623
5 Fox Interactive Media 89,236
6 eBay 71,495
7 Ask Network 58,482
8 Amazon Sites 57,942
9 Wikimedia Foundation Sites 55,423
10 CBS Corporation 49,229
11 Apple Inc. 47,578
12 Turner Network 46,787
13 Viacom Digital 44,836
14 Glam Media 44,377
15 New York Times Digital 43,367
16 FACEBOOK.COM 40,959
17 Weather Channel, The 36,613
18 craigslist, inc. 35,516
19 Time Warner - Excluding AOL 32,517
20 Disney Online 32,334
21 Wal-Mart 31,958
22 Target Corporation 30,533
23 Adobe Sites 30,172
24 Comcast Corporation 29,725
25 AT&T, Inc. 28,588
Rank Property Unique Visitors(000)
26 Verizon Communications Corporation 28,496
27 Yellowpages.com Network 28,384
28 Superpages.com Network 27,965
29 Gorilla Nation 27,940
30 Bank of America 25,551
31 Photobucket.com LLC 25,003
32 Expedia Inc 23,926
33 United Online, Inc 23,920
34 Monster Worldwide 22,313
35 Real.com Network 22,262
36 ESPN 22,199
37 Demand Media 21,727
38 Gannett Sites 21,484
39 WordPress 21,419
40 Shopzilla.com Sites 21,320
41 CareerBuilder LLC 20,803
42 Weatherbug Property 20,767
43 iVillage.com: The Womens Network 19,756
44 WhitePages 18,841
45 Answers.com Sites 18,700
46 Hearst Corporation 18,116
47 WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites 18,104
48 WebMD Health 17,740
49 Cox Enterprises Inc. 16,999
50 NBC Universal 16,811
TABLE 4
comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.)
August 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank Property Unique Visitors (000) Reach %
Total Internet :
Total Audience 188,937 100%
1 Platform-A**+ 170,728 90%
2 Google Ad Network** 156,415 83%
3 Yahoo! Network** 156,212 83%
4 Specific Media** 152,501 81%
5 ValueClick Networks** 150,813 80%
6 Tribal Fusion** 142,840 76%
7 Yahoo! 139,807 74%
8 Google 136,484 72%
9 YuMe Video Network -
Potential Reach++ 129,871 69%
10 Casale Media - MediaNet** 129,195 68%
11 Traffic Marketplace** 128,893 68%
12 Tremor Media - Potential Reach++ 126,314 67%
13 Adconion Media Group** 124,532 66%
14 24/7 Real Media** 123,808 66%
15 interCLICK** 122,478 65%
16 Revenue Science** 121,893 65%
17 DRIVEpm** 117,188 62%
18 CPX Interactive** 115,710 61%
19 MSN-Windows Live 111,258 59%
20 AOL Media Network 110,623 59%
21 ADSDAQ by ContextWeb** 108,574 57%
22 Collective Media** 107,943 57%
23 Burst Media** 96,648 51%
24 Turn, Inc** 94,042 50%
25 Centro - Potential Reach++ 81,836 43%
Rank Property Unique Visitors (000) Reach %
26 Undertone Networks** 81,639 43%
27 AdBrite** 81,310 43%
28 MYSPACE.COM* 75,491 40%
29 YOUTUBE.COM 75,425 40%
30 Vibrant Media** 74,792 40%
31 NNN Total Newspapers: U.S. 72,202 38%
32 Gorilla Nation Media -
Potential Reach++ 66,124 35%
33 Ybrant - Oridian - ADdynamix
Network** 61,066 32%
34 MSN.COM Home Page 58,727 31%
35 Ask Network 58,482 31%
36 EBAY.COM 58,303 31%
37 Pulse 360** 57,646 31%
38 Kontera** 55,288 29%
39 IAC Ad Solutions - Potential
Reach++ 53,677 28%
40 Intergi - Potential Reach 52,461 28%
41 National Broadband Network -
Potential Reach++ 52,236 28%
42 IB Local Network 51,148 27%
43 NNN Top 25 49,070 26%
44 MapQuest 47,276 25%
45 AMAZON.COM 46,830 25%
46 AdOn Network** 45,740 24%
47 TattoMedia** 44,278 23%
48 QuadrantONE - Potential Reach++ 43,599 23%
49 EBAY.COM Home Page 41,831 22%
50 FACEBOOK.COM 40,959 22%
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that
viewed a particular entity at least once in August. For instance, Yahoo!
was seen by 74 percent of the 189 million Internet users in August.
* Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated
entities.
** Denotes an advertising network.
+ The Platform A ad network is an aggregation of ad servers used by the
following individual advertising network entities: Advertising.com,
Tacoda, AOL, Quigo and Userplane.
++ Entities followed with a "Potential Reach" notation are custom entities
representing the number of unduplicated visitors to sites with which
the specified ad network has contracted to deliver advertising. Unlike
entities marked as advertising networks (**), those denoted with
"Potential Reach" do not represent the total number of visitors
actually reached by ads via the ad network.
About comScore Media Metrix
comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate
