End of Summer Boosts Traffic to Online Video, Back-to-School and Football Sites

Dell Recall Drives Traffic; Xerox’s “Let’s Say Thanks” Campaign Delivers Users; Back-to-School Season Triggers Research and Online Shopping Spikes

RESTON, VA, September 15, 2006 – Comscore MMX today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties and categories for August. Youtube.com continued its rise, increasing 19 percent to reach 19.1 million unique visitors, making it the 32nd most-visited Web property in the U.S., an eight-spot increase from July when it debuted in the Comscore MMX Top 50 for the first time.

“As user-generated content increases in popularity, sites like YouTube.com will continue to become a destination of choice for people wanting to share their video, ideas, photos, and the like with friends and family,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of Comscore MMX. “We’re seeing consumer products companies like Coca-Cola, which was one of the top-ten gaining properties in August, follow suit by inviting consumers to post their videos online. This type of marketing creates a forum for consumers to interact with the product and solidify a relationship with the brand.”

In another example of brand-relationship building, the popularity of Xerox’s “Let’s Say Thanks” campaign, which enables consumers to send free postcards to overseas military personnel, was largely responsible for making the Xerox Corporation the top-gaining Web property during August with 5.6 million visitors, a 628-percent increase versus July. Conversely, the much publicized recall of Dell laptops caused 18.1 million Americans to visit the Dell property, a 23-percent increase versus July.

Back-to-School Means Back Online

As consumers prepared for “Back-to-school” season, education and reference sites saw traffic increases, as did retailers such as Staples.com Sites (7 million visitors and a 32-percent increase versus July), Office Depot (6.7 million visitors and an 18-percent increase), and OfficeMax (3.2 million visitors and a 46-percent increase), which represented three of the top four sites in the Consumer Goods category in August.

Sites providing resources for school-aged children and their parents also saw increases as evidenced by the 48-percent surge in traffic at AOL Research & Learn (4.7 million visitors), the 36-percent increase to Greatschools.net (3.4 million visitors), and the 26-percent increase to Coca-Cola-sponsored Family Education Network (2.5 million).

Notable increases at sites dedicated to college students and graduates included Allschools.com Network, which increased 66 percent to 386,000 visitors; Collegegrad.com, which increased 61 percent to 412,000 visitors; and Finaid.org, which increased 55 percent to 400,000 visitors.

Finally, test prep companies College Board Property and Princeton Review.com saw sharp increases versus July, rising 22-percent (to 1.9 million visitors) and 28-percent (to 910,000 visitors), respectively. Additionally, Classmates.com, the site dedicated to connecting high school and college classmates, increased 23 percent to 17.2 million visitors in August.

Federal Reserve and Earnings Announcements Drive Traffic at Online Trading Sites

Traffic at online trading sites increased 10 percent to 12.4 million visitors, following second quarter earnings announcements and the Federal Reserve’s decision to not raise interest rates. Fidelity Investments led the category with 3.7 million visitors (up 8 percent), followed by Sharebuilder.com with 2.3 million visitors (up 112 percent) and Scottrade Sites with 1.7 million visitors (up 20 percent).

“Investors were likely accessing their accounts with greater frequency this August to assess the impact of quarterly earnings results, geopolitical uncertainty, and ongoing concern regarding the direction of interest rates following the Federal Reserve’s early August announcement that the target rate for overnight bank loans would not be increased after 17 straight increases since June 2004,” Flanagan said.

Americans Gear up for Football Season

Demonstrating America’s obsession with football, the second-biggest gaining property in August was the NFL Internet Group, which grew 71 percent to 13.4 million visitors. Within the sports category, the NFL Internet Group ranked fourth, bested by ESPN with 17.9 million visitors, Fox Sports on MSN with 14.1 million visitors and Yahoo! Sports with 13.8 million visitors.

Sports and Outdoors retailers also saw an overall uptick in traffic, driven by sites such as FootballFanatics.com, which rose 68 percent to 900,000 visitors, and the NFLshop.com, which jumped 139 percent increase to 820,000 visitors.

Top 50 Properties

In August, Yahoo! Sites maintained the number one ranking, attracting more than 131.3 million visitors. After re-entering the ranking in July, Dell jumped 12 spots to number 35, drawing 18.1 million unique visitors, a 23-percent increase from the previous month. Ticketmaster, Citysearch, WebMD Health, and Craigslist.org all re-entered the ranking, at numbers 42, 46, 48, and 49, respectively.

Top 50 Ad Focus

Advertising.com retained the top spot in the August Ad Focus ranking for the 28th consecutive month, reaching 85 percent of all U.S. Internet users. Within the top ten Ad Focus ranking ValueClick, Tribal Fusion, and Google each gained one spot, moving to numbers two, four, and seven, respectively. Burst Media gained three spots to secure the number 10 position, reaching 53 percent of Americans online, up from 48 percent in July. Advertising networks ContextWeb and Undertone Networks debuted within the top 50 in August, claiming the 25th and 28th spots, respectively. Finally, online video site Youtube.com and networking site Classmates.com also entered the Ad Focus ranking this month.

TABLE 1

*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2006.

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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 75 percent of the more than 173 million Internet users in August.
* Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated entities.
** Denotes 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 is a global leader in measuring the digital age. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given Comscore 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 proprietary 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, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

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