Local Information Sources Meet Nationwide Demand for Hurricane Katrina Information

RESTON, VA, September 19, 2005 – Americans seeking online news and information about Hurricane Katrina went straight to the source, dramatically increasing visitation to New Orleans’ local media outlets in August, according to the monthly analysis of online activity released today by Comscore MMX.

NOLA.com, the Web home of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper owned by Advance Publications, saw its traffic increase by 277 percent from July to 1.7 million visitors in August. Meanwhile, New Orleans’ CBS affiliate WWL-TV, owned by Belo Corporation, saw visitation to its site, WWLTV.com, increase by 258 percent to 878,000 for the month.

“Sites with specific local content rarely see this kind of growth, but the Internet allowed the entire nation to access information straight from the epicenter of the disaster,” said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of Comscore MMX. “This pattern underscores the continuing concern and support that all Americans have expressed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”

During August 2005, more than 39 percent of NOLA.com’s 1.7 million visitors came from the South Central regions, which contain eight states including Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. This means that well over half of the remaining traffic to NOLA.com originated in other parts of the country safely located outside the storm’s path. The Pacific region accounted for 10 percent of NOLA.com visitors, while the upper Midwest states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin collectively contributed 11 percent of the site’s audience.

Around The Web
Back To School, Back To The Web – Three of the top ten gaining categories in August were related to career and education information as students returned to school during the month. Career Services & Development - Education & Training was the highest gaining category in August, up 17 percent from July to 8.8 million visitors. Overall, more than 84 million people visited sites in the Education category in August, up 9 percent from July. Standout sites within these categories include CollegeBoard.com (2 million visitors, 23 percent gain), FastWeb (1.9 million visitors, 19 percent gain), and GreatSchools.net (3.2 million visitors, 67 percent gain).

Football Season Tackles Web Audience – The kickoff of both college and professional football seasons in August was reflected in Web traffic, helping the Sports category climb 6 percent to reach 60.9 million visitors. As fans prepared for the season by viewing fantasy football information and team schedules, the NFL Internet Group posted a 74-percent gain in visitation to reach 12.6 million visitors online, making it the Internet’s top-gaining property in August. College gridiron enthusiasts sought news on their favorite teams as well as merchandise at sites including College Sports TV, which saw traffic increase by more than 40 percent over July with 5.3 million August visitors.

Wireless Wonders - The recently combined Sprint Nextel Corporation made a splash in its monthly debut as a combined property by welcoming 13.8 million visitors in August, following the completion of a merger that brought together two of the nation’s telecommunications giants. One of its top competitors, Cingular Wireless, made its own waves by offering free phones to new service plan subscribers. Thanks in major part to this promotion, Cingular’s parent company AT&T Properties received 25.3 million visitors, a 27-percent gain over July.

Movers and Shakers
McAfee.com Sites – The provider of anti-virus software was a popular online destination as the Zotob and Mytob worms rattled the Internet community. McAfee saw its visitation increase by 40 percent in August to 4.9 million visitors.

ImageShack.us – This service that provides images for blogs, message boards, and photo sharing was visited by 5.1 million Americans in August, up 36 percent from July. ImageShack is popular among the growing crowd of MySpace users. In August, 1.8 million visitors came to ImageShack from MySpace.

United Airlines – The world’s second-largest air carrier saw a 17-percent ascent in August to reach 6.6 million visitors. Consumers were drawn to United’s “Fall Sale” featuring reduced airfares to many destinations, including Cancun, Mexico.

Staples.com Sites – A new-look website and the back-to-school shopping crush helped this office retailer crack the top ten gaining properties. Staples.com Sites were visited by 6 million consumers in August, a 17-percent increase over July.

TABLE 1

*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2005

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Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that views a particular entity at least once in July. For instance, Yahoo! was seen by 71 percent of the over 168 million Internet users in August. The notation “**”indicates that the entity is an advertising network.

About Comscore MMX
Comscore MMX, a division of Comscore Networks, provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report – with unmatched accuracy – 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 continues the tradition of quality and innovation established by its MMX syndicated Internet ratings – long recognized as the currency in online media measurement among financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers – while drawing upon Comscore's advanced technologies to address important new industry requirements. All Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About Comscore Networks
Comscore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given Comscore explicit permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. Comscore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its patent-pending technology, Comscore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. Comscore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. Comscore services are used by global leaders such as AOL, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Nestlé, Bank of America, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, GlaxoSmithKline and Orbitz. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com