| Twitter enters top 100 sites; UK traffic has trebled already in 2009 |
During the week ending 07/02/09 Twitter became one of the 100 most visited websites in the UK for the first time. It ranked 91st within All Categories, placing above online heavyweights such as Expedia UK (96), Gumtree (100), easyJet (101), Digital Spy (103) and MoneySupermarket (105).
Twitter traffic has already more than trebled in 2009 and as the chart illustrates, there was a noticeable increase in visits following the media attention generated by the likes of Stephen Fry (owner of the world's second favourite Twitter feed after Barack Obama) and Jonathan Ross.
Over the last 12 months traffic to Twitter.com has increased 27 fold. As Hitwise is only measuring traffic to the Twitter website, if people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers may even be higher.
One of the reasons for Twitter's success is the 'eco-system' of sites and applications that it has created via its open API. One of the most notable is Twitpic, which essentially allows users to upload pictures to their Twitter profiles. The site ranked 7th in the Entertainment - Photography category for the week ending 07/02/09, up from 26th a month ago. Twitpic is still small in comparison to Flickr and Photobucket, but is growing rapidly. UK Internet traffic to the site has increased more than 5 fold already this year.
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| Compare the Market - www.comparethemeerkat.com |
Position for the week ending 31/01/2009: #926
Position for the week ending 07/02/2009: #639
Positions Jumped: 287
Since Aleksandr the Meerkat and founder of www.comparethemeerkat.com televised that his site was not the 'cheap car insurance' website www.comparethemarket.com, visits to both sites have increased significantly. Visits to Compare the Market have increased by 86% since the week ending 27/12/08 which corresponds with traffic to Compare the Meerkat. 21% of the people visiting Compare the Meerkat went directly to Compare the Market.
On average people are spending more time visiting the Compare the Meerkat website then they are Compare the Market. And interestingly, the majority of visitors to www.comparethemeerkat.com are undergraduates and young professionals who are less likely to own cars.
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| UK snow storm affects weather and transport sites |
Monday 02/02/09 was the busiest ever day for weather websites in the UK. As the chart below illustrates, websites in the Weather category picked up 1.6% of all UK Internet visits, equivalent to 1 in every 63 visits online.
The National Rail website crashed after receiving three times its normal level of traffic, while Transport for London experienced a five-fold increase in visits. Not surprisingly 'sledges', 'snow boots', and 'wellington boots' were among the top 10 fast moving search terms in the retail industry for the week ending 07/02/09.
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| UK Book Launch – Click: What we do online and why it matters |
Written by Bill Tancer, the General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, Click provides a behind-the-scenes view of the daily analysis the Hitwise Research team conducts into online behaviour. With a sample of over 25 million worldwide, insights can be gleaned on the sites that we collectively visit, what we search for and what that tells us about ourselves.
Read more.
Deloitte Retail Review: Retailing in the new environment
More than ever, retailers need to focus on and prioritise their actions for 2009. Find out what really happened over the Christmas trading period, what the trading climate will look like in 2009, and who will emerge as winners and losers.
Read more.
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| Searches for ‘valentine’s breaks uk’ increase by more than 50% |
Due to the current economic downturn, the number of UK Internet searches for Valentine breaks to UK destinations has increased compared to last year. Popular locations include Scotland, London, Yorkshire, Cornwall, and Northern Ireland. At the same time searches for Valentine breaks abroad have decreased. For example, last year 'valentine breaks to paris' was the 20th most popular search term containing the phrase 'valentine breaks', but this year it has fallen to 29th.
Read more Hitwise To Go's here.
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