Daily Research News Online no. 2694 - Students, Storms, Sports Contribute to Internet Milestone

Students, Storms, Sports Contribute to Internet Milestone

October 23 2003

comScore Media Metrix has announced the top 50 US Internet properties for the month of September 2003, together with the news that the total number of US Internet users passed the 150m mark for the first time.

Americans spent more time on the 'Net in 30-day September than in 31-day August - 3% more in fact. ComScore suggest that this increase was driven almost entirely by the university population returning to campus and their computers. Sites such as Reference.com, Encyclopaedia Britannica and Family Education Network surged with the start of the school year.

There were three new entrants to the Top 50 Properties ranking - Verisign rocketed from 135th to 11th place after launching SiteFinder, which redirects mistyped URLs to its site, while NFL Internet Group rose 15 places to 34.

The Retail-Food category grew strongly - up 17% on August with its top three properties, Cooking.com, OmahaSteaks.com and Schwans.com, all increasing promotional activity.

Internet users tracking the progress of Hurricane Isabel pushed the weather category up 10%, while the beginning of the National Football League season and Major League Baseball pennant races sent 4.5m more fans to the Sports category - a gain of 9 percent versus August. ESPN, the largest site in the Sports category, grew 14% to 17.6m unique visitors.

The Entertainment-Music category also saw a 5% increase in audience volume, driven almost entirely by AOL.com Music, which featured content related to the AOL-sponsored Dave Matthews Band benefit concert in New York's Central Park on September 24.

Top 50 Properties September 2003 - Unique Visitors ('000)
Total US - Home, Work and University Locations

Rank	Property	Unique Visitors
		(000)
	Total Internet Users	150,045
1	MSN-Microsoft Sites	110,167
2	AOL Time Warner - Proprietary & WWW	109,335
3	Yahoo! Sites	108,096
4	Ebay	62,577
5	Google Sites	56,270
6	Terra Lycos	51,605
7	About/Primedia	43,656
8	Amazon Sites	36,295
9	Gator Network	34,158
10	Excite Network	32,750
11	Verisign Sites	30,787
12	Viacom Online	25,846
13	Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG)	25,037
14	CNET Networks	24,593
15	Symantec	24,459
16	Weather Channel, The	23,577
17	Real.com Network	22,934
18	Verizon Communications Corporation	19,424
19	Overture	18,786
20	InfoSpace Network	18,725
21	eUniverse Network	17,767
22	Classmates.com Sites	17,673
23	SBC Communications	16,955
24	Monster Property	16,720
25	Ask Jeeves	16,501
26	EA Online	16,196
27	Expedia Travel	16,076
28	AT&T Properties	16,054
29	Sony Online	15,754
30	Weatherbug.com Property	15,453
31	Vivendi-Universal Sites	15,387
32	iVillage.com: The Womens Network	14,158
33	Shopping.com Sites	13,919
34	NFL Internet Group	13,914
35	Gannett Sites	12,775
36	United Online, Inc	12,683
37	Cox Enterprises Inc.	11,865
38	Wal-Mart	11,580
39	AmericanGreetings Property	11,507
40	Adobe Sites	11,493
41	News Corp. Online	11,481
42	Travelocity	11,414
43	Earthlink	11,360
44	ORBITZ.COM	11,333
45	Dell	11,302
46	Comcast Corporation	10,647
47	New York Times Digital	10,627
48	Hewlett Packard	10,389
49	EMODE.COM	10,166
50	Columbia House Sites	10,004

Top 10 Gaining Categories/Sub-Categories, September 2003 - Unique Visitors (000)
Total US - Home, Work and University Locations

Property	Aug-03	Sep-03	% Change
	Unique Visitors (000)	Unique Visitors (000)
Total Internet Users	148,811	150,045	0.8%
Retail-Food	8,324	9,732	16.9%
Weather	38,100	41,757	9.6%
Sports	48,169	52,633	9.3%
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings	23,576	25,373	7.6%
Entertainment-TV	44,085	47,154	7.0%
Hobbies-Lifestyles-Food	22,959	24,322	5.9%
Hobbies/Lifestyles-Home	26,384	27,909	5.8%
Online Trading	10,739	11,256	4.8%
Entertainment-Music	62,210	65,116	4.7%