The Internet usage monitor comScore Media Metrix has released October
statistics showing a significant drop in US online gambling penetration,
and that Americans were drawn in particular to e-card, party, kids,
toy, family and women's Web sites on the run-up to the festive season
starting with Halloween.
The company notes what it describes as the "precipitous
drop in traffic to online gambling sites" where a decline
of 27 percent was recorded following anti-gambling legislation announced
in early October.
In preparation for the November elections, Americans flocked to political
Web sites, with traffic increasing 10 percent to 8.6 million visitors.
The advent of basketball season brought on a flood of traffic to the
NBA Internet Network (up 46 percent to 3.8 million visitors).
Wikipedia and YouTube again showed significant growth in October,
up 11 percent to 38.9 million visitors and 13 percent to 23.5 million
visitors, respectively.
"In addition to the normal Halloween seasonality that we've
become accustomed to in October, politics impacted Web traffic this
October as the fight for control of Congress was clearly top-of-mind
with many Americans," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice
president of comScore Media Metrix. "Along these lines,
the legislation passed by Congress to restrict online gambling made
a marked dent in traffic to these sites - after seeing double-digit
gains for these sites in September."
The top 50 properties overall were headed during October by the Yahoo!
Sites, which retained ranking as the number one property, reaching
nearly 130 million unique visitors in the U.S. Yahoo! was seen by
74 percent of the more than 173 million Internet users in October.
Wikipedia Sites moved up one position to the number 10 spot, attracting
11 percent more visitors than in September, while Wal-Mart moved up
four positions to number 17. YouTube.com jumped three spots to number
26, gaining 13 percent to 23.5 million visitors. iVillage.com: The
Women's Network enjoyed a significant increase in visitors, drawing
almost 18 million visitors and jumping eleven spots to number 34 in
the ranking.
Advertising.com topped the Ad Focus section for the month, again reaching
84 percent of the U.S. online population to retain the top ranking.
Burst Media cracked the top ten this month, reaching almost 94 million
unique visitors. YouTube.com and Real.com each gained in the ranking,
reaching 14 percent and 9 percent of the population, respectively.