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Twitter.com Traffic More than Doubles to Rank as Fastest-Growing Property in March Americans Seek Financial Advice Online as Economic Concerns Persist
RESTON, VA, April 22, 2009 – 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 March 2009 based on data from the Comscore MMX service. Americans turned to the Web to plan spring and summer travel, and to manage their personal finances during the economic downturn. The month also saw the recent obsession with “tweeting” gain steam, as Twitter.com more than doubled its visitor base, ranking as the top-gaining property for the month.
“Twitter has certainly become an Internet phenomenon over the past few months, but March represented an especially big gain for the site as it added more than 5 million visitors versus the previous month,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of Comscore MMX. “With numerous celebrities and media personalities – including Oprah – recently jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, the site shows no signs of slowing.”
Twitter Captures Fastest-Growing Property Title
After several preceding months of strong double-digit growth, traffic to Twitter.com accelerated in March, growing 131 percent to 9.3 million visitors. Fueled in part by celebrity “tweeters” and substantial mainstream media attention, the site ranked as the top-gaining property for the month. For additional analysis of Twitter’s growth in March, please visit the Comscore Voices blog: http://www.comscore.com/blog/2009/04/breaking_news_and_making_news.html
Americans Seek Financial Advice Online
Many Americans sought financial advice online to help navigate the turbulent economy, resulting in a 12-percent gain at the Financial Information/Advice category. Consumer concerns about the status of their credit rating drove traffic to FreeCreditReport.com, which grew 6 percent to 6.6 million visitors and ranked as the most visited site in the category. Bankrate.com Sites, which provides rate information on various financial products such as mortgages, credit cards and money market accounts, reported a 12-percent increase to 3.9 million visitors.
Travel Sites See Gains as Visitors Plan for Summer Travel As Americans prepared for spring travel and planned for summer vacations, several travel categories witnessed gains. Travel – Transactions led as the top-gaining category for the month, growing 18 percent to 4.5 million visitors.
The Car Rental and Airlines categories also saw double-digit gains, each growing 11 percent to 5.6 million and 29.8 million visitors, respectively. Southwest Airlines Co. led the Airlines category with 11.3 million visitors, up 20 percent from the previous month, followed by Delta Airlines with 6.5 million visitors (up 5 percent) and American Airlines with 5.8 million visitors (up 25 percent).
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in March with more than 151 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 146 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 122.3 million visitors. Facebook.com moved up one spot in the ranking to #9 this month with 61.2 million visitors.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform-A led the March Ad Focus ranking, reaching 90 percent of the 192 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network ranked second, reaching 86 percent, while Google Ad Network moved up one spot to #3 with an 84-percent reach.
TABLE 1
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)March 2009 vs. February 2009Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Feb-09
Mar-09
% Change
Rank by Unique Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience
192,187
192,173
0
N/A
Twitter.com
4,033
9,313
131
114
Grisoft
4,260
7,764
82
145
Oprah.com
2,814
4,505
60
243
Usmagazine.com
3,863
5,943
54
190
Technorati Media
11,692
16,021
37
59
MLB.com
5,069
6,860
35
163
Groupe Lagardere
4,253
5,705
34
199
Limewire.com
7,861
10,414
32
102
Universal Music Group
5,626
7,421
153
Nestle
3,269
4,278
31
250
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in March 2009.
TABLE 2
Comscore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories* by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)March 2009 vs. February 2009Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Travel - Transactions
3,770
4,463
18
Business/Finance - Financial Information/Advice
35,325
39,518
12
Travel - Car Rental
5,008
5,556
11
Travel - Airlines
26,922
29,818
Entertainment - Humor
21,441
23,446
9
Business/Finance - Banking
73,096
79,031
8
Entertainment - Radio
35,638
38,522
Community - Beauty/Fashion/Style
21,861
23,368
7
Health - Information
66,623
71,201
Directories/Resources - Classifieds
50,401
53,839
TABLE 3
Comscore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)March 2009 Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsUnique Visitors (000)Source: Comscore MMX
Rank
Property
Unique Visitors
(000)
1
Google Sites
151,241
26
Disney Online
27,728
2
Yahoo! Sites
146,059
27
Bank of America
27,126
3
Microsoft Sites
122,323
28
Answers.com Sites
26,460
4
AOL LLC
104,416
29
Photobucket.com LLC
26,130
5
Fox Interactive Media
85,057
30
Demand Media
25,863
6
Ask Network
72,798
The Mozilla Organization
25,650
eBay
70,021
Weatherbug Property
25,160
Wikimedia Foundation Sites
61,446
33
Time Warner - Excluding AOL
25,144
FACEBOOK.COM
61,224
Expedia Inc
24,578
10
Amazon Sites
60,999
WordPress
24,403
CBS Interactive
54,385
36
United Online, Inc
23,966
Apple Inc.
53,089
Gorilla Nation
22,914
13
Glam Media
52,220
38
AT&T, Inc.
22,509
14
Turner Network
47,775
39
Everyday Health
22,112
15
Viacom Digital
46,971
40
CareerBuilder LLC
21,648
16
New York Times Digital
45,908
41
Monster Worldwide
21,534
17
craigslist, inc.
42,167
42
ESPN
21,262
Weather Channel, The
39,452
43
WebMD Health
21,210
19
AT&T Interactive Network
35,903
44
JPMorgan Chase Property
20,952
20
Adobe Sites
34,651
45
Gannett Sites
20,584
21
Verizon Communications Corporation
33,857
46
Shopzilla.com Sites
20,511
22
Comcast Corporation
31,205
47
WhitePages
20,454
23
Superpages.com Network
30,576
48
iVillage.com: The Womens Network
20,425
24
Wal-Mart
30,089
49
Real.com Network
20,082
25
Target Corporation
27,990
50
Wells Fargo
19,017
TABLE 4
Comscore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.) March 2009 Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: Comscore MMX
Unique Visitors (000)
Reach %
100%
Platform-A**
173,772
90%
AOL Media Network
54%
Yahoo! Network**
165,578
86%
BrightRoll Video Network - Potential Reach
95,654
50%
Google Ad Network**
160,762
84%
AdBrite**
86,444
45%
ValueClick Networks**
156,662
82%
Gorilla Nation Media - Potential Reach
83,323
43%
76%
Undertone Networks**
82,797
Google
143,570
75%
YOUTUBE.COM*
82,691
24/7 Real Media**
141,728
74%
YuMe Video Network - Potential Reach
76,074
40%
Traffic Marketplace**
141,078
73%
Vibrant Media**
75,681
39%
FOX Audience Network**
140,922
Centro - Potential Reach
74,206
Tribal Fusion**
137,627
72%
Pulse 360**
73,804
38%
Tremor Media - Potential Reach
136,277
71%
Specific Media**
135,643
NNN Total Newspapers: U.S.
72,064
37%
Casale Media - MediaNet**
135,056
70%
MYSPACE.COM*
70,147
interCLICK**
131,595
68%
Adify**
69,027
36%
CPX Interactive**
129,230
67%
Kontera**
65,996
34%
Adconion Media Group**
127,445
66%
Monster Career Ad Network (CAN)**
65,658
Turn, Inc**
125,805
65%
TattoMedia**
64,731
Microsoft Media Network US**
123,192
64%
ITN Digital - Potential Reach
63,104
33%
Collective Network by Collective Media**
121,731
63%
32%
ADSDAQ by ContextWeb**
118,929
62%
IAC Ad Solutions
57,292
30%
Platform-A Video Network - Potential Reach
118,872
EBAY.COM
54,946
29%
AudienceScience (formerly Revenue Science)**
114,904
60%
27%
Burst Media**
110,313
57%
AMAZON.COM
51,688
MSN-Windows Live
108,025
56%
NNN Top 25
49,557
26%
Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG) - Potential Reach
107,953
Business.com Network
49,369
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in March. For instance, Yahoo! Sites was seen by 76 percent of the more than 192 million Internet users in March. * Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated entities. ** Denotes an advertising network.
About Comscore MMX
Comscore MMX 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 MMX reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. Comscore MMX 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 www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
Contact:Sarah RadwanickDirector, Regional Product MarketingComscore, Inc. +44 (0) 20 7099 1784worldpress@comscore.com