1.1) The Top Ten sites in News/Information Category in terms of Total Unique Visitors in August 2008 are (see attached list):
1. MSNBC
2. Yahoo! News
3. New York Times Digital
4. Weather Channel, The
5. CNN
6. AOL News
7. Gannett Sites
8. Weatherbug Property
9. WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites
10. Tribune Newspapers
1.2) Media Trends between August 2007 and August 2008 (see attached list):
? Total Internet Population in the U.S grew by 4.24% while the audience for News/Information sites grew by 7.77%.
? MSNBC grew steadily with a sharp upturn in Aug 2008, and registered a 63% increase in unique visitors between Aug 2007 and Aug 2008. Possible reasons could include their ground-breaking technology for video-streaming, enhanced site design, original content and flagship shows combined with their focused coverage of the 2009 Presidential elections.
? Traditional print media have performed well in capturing the audience seeking accurate news and information with most big traditional media brands such as CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, ABC, FOXNEWS and Tribune group gaining audience share at rates much higher than the 7.77% for the category. This could indicate print consumers moving from print to internet medium but sticking to tried-and-tested sources of information.
? When ranked in reverse order of Change %, there are a number of sites that deal with voter registration, political blogs and official presidential campaigns, which registered a sharp increase in audience. (Examples are MOVEON, Huffington Post, BarackObama.com, FactCheck, RocktheVote etc). These are temporary effects which should vanish in 2-3 months.
? A large number of news/information sites have been consolidated into bigger sites. Even though there are ...