April 25, 2012
Travel site categories accounted for 5 of the 10 top-gaining web categories by percentage change in March 2012, including Transactions sites, which grew 12% month-over-month to 3.8 million visitors, according to [download page] comScore Media Metrix data. Information sites drew 69.7 million visitors during the month (up 10%), while airline sites attracted 29.8 million, representing an 8% increase. Car rental sites reached almost 7.3 million visitors during the month (up 7%), while hotels and resorts sites saw audience growth of 6%, to 35.1 million. Read more »
March 22, 2012
The Valentine's Day holiday sent many Americans online to order flowers and gifts for loved ones in February, according to [download page] new Media Metrix data from comScore. The flowers/gifts/greetings category rose 28% to 29.3 million visitors for the month, putting it second on the list of top-gaining categories. E-card sites also saw a boost in visitors, up 13% to 21.5 million, while jewelry, luxury goods, and accessories sites saw comparatively smaller 4% growth, still enough to land the category in the top 10 fastest-gaining list by percentage change. Read more »
February 20, 2012
Travel site categories accounted for 4 of the 10 top-gaining web categories by percentage change in January 2012, including Transactions sites, which grew 28% month-over-month to 3.7 million visitors, according to [download page] comScore Media Metrix data. Car Rental sites reached 6.2 million visitors during the month (up 22%), while Hotels/Resort sites attracted 33.2 million visitors in January, representing a 18% increase. Ground/Cruise sites (16%) also posted double-digit gains. Read more »
February 9, 2012
The popularity of Google+ has showed dramatic growth recently, according to February 2012 analysis from Compete, which tracked the the landing page for the main feature of the social network, the +1 button (google.com/+1/button, or plusone.google.com), beginning in November 2011. The page drew over 40 million unique visitors in December alone, with more than 10 times that amount in visits, while also passing 3 billion page views. Read more »
January 27, 2012
Retail site categories boasted 5 of the 10 top-gaining web categories by percentage change in December 2011, including Movie sites, which grew 21% month-over-month to 43.8 million visitors, according to [download page] comScore Media Metrix data. Jewelry, Luxury Goods, and Accessories sites reached 28.6 million visitors during the month (up 19%), while Flowers, Gifts and Greetings sites attracted 34.1 million visitors in December, also representing a 19% increase. Sports, Outdoor (13%) and Books (10%) also posted double-digit gains. Read more »
January 9, 2012
290 million Americans owned at least 1 TV in 2011, while 253 million owned a DVD player, putting both devices ahead of mobile phones in ownership (232 million), according to [pdf] a January 2012 report from Nielsen. 114.7 million households owned at least 1 TV, with the largest number of those (35.9 million) owning 4 or more. In total, 288 million viewers aged 2 and up watched traditional TV, while 143 million watched TV or video on the internet. The 111 million viewers watching timeshifted TV in Q2 2011 represented 11% year-over-year growth. Read more »
January 3, 2012
Google Chrome held 18.7% share of the US browser market in December 2011, representing a 50% increase from 12.4% a year earlier, and challenging Firefox, which dropped to 20.1% share from 26.9%, for the second rank, according to December 2011 figures from StatCounter. Microsoft's Internet Explorer remained the top browser with 48.3% market share in December 2011, unchanged from a year earlier. Rounding out the top 5 were Safari (11.5%) and Opera (0.5%). Read more »
December 29, 2011
About 28.9 million US consumers visited toy sites in October 2011, representing 34% month-over-month growth from roughly 21.6 million US consumers in October, making the retail category subset the fastest growing by percentage change, according to [download page] comScore Media Metrix data. Read more »
December 27, 2011
"Facebook" was the top-searched term in the US in 2011, accounting for 3.1% of all searches, representing a 46% increase from 2010, when it was also the top-searched term, according to an analysis of the year's top 1000 search terms by Experian Hitwise. Four variations of the popular social networking site were among the top 10 terms, accounting for 4.4% of searches overall, a 24% increase from 2010. This year marks the sixth straight year that a social network search term has topped the list. Read more »
November 28, 2011
Americans spent $816 million online this Black Friday, representing a 26% increase from $648 million in 2010, and making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011, according to November analysis from comScore. Data from the analysis indicates that Thanksgiving Day also achieved an 18% year-over-year increase in spending, rising from $407 million to $479 million. Overall online spending for the holiday season to-date (from November 1 to 25) rose to $12.7 billion, marking 15% growth from $11.1 billion in the corresponding shopping days from 2010.
According to earlier November data from comScore, online retail spending reached $36.3 billion in Q3. Read more »
