TSUNAMI BLOG AMONG 10 MOST POPULAR HUMANITARIAN SITES

Traffic to Humanitarian Sites up 180 Percent
NEW YORK, Jan. 5, 2005 - With relief coming in from all over the world, U.S. citizens are embracing the Internet to support relief efforts for victims of the Asian Tsunami disaster.

According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, the market share of U.S. visits to humanitarian Web sites skyrocketed 180 percent the week ending Jan. 1, 2005 versus the prior week. Humanitarian sites peaked on Dec. 30, 2004, when visits accounted for .096 percent of all daily Internet traffic.

"The surge of online responses to the Tsunami relief effort demonstrates a great concern from citizens," said Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise. "The data also underscore how important it is for humanitarian and charitable organizations to have scaleable interactive channels in place to handle massive influxes of users - to process donations and harness consumer sentiment."

The top 2 charity websites for the week ending Jan. 1, 2005 were America Red Cross (up 1,285 percent) and United Nations Children's Fund (up 2,034 percent).


News and Blog Sites Play Instrumental Support Role

An analysis of Hitwise clickstream data show that news sites have played an immediate and instrumental role in informing Internet visitors where to donate funds. News sites directly referred 17.1 percent of traffic to Humanitarian sites for the week ending Jan. 1, 2005, compared to 5.5 percent during the prior week. Search engines and directories provided the most referrals at 29 percent (up from 20 percent the week prior).

The blog site Tsunami Help (tsunamihelp.blogspot.com) was the 10th most visited site in the Humanitarian Category, indicating that blogging is capable of expanding its influence into the realm of online fundraising. This site experienced an increase in market share of visits by 1,926 percent between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31, 2004.

Top 10 Humanitarian sites by Market Share of Internet Visits to Humanitarian Category
Period - Week Ending January 1, 2005
Rank Site Domain Market Share of Visits
1. American Red Cross www.redcross.org 18.32%
2. United Nations Children's Fund www.unicef.org,
www.unicefusa.org		 9.99%
3. The Hunger Site www.hungersite.com 8.54%
4. Network For Good www.networkforgood.org 6.66%
5. World Vision www.worldvision.org,
donate.wvus.org		 6.64%
6. The Child Health Site www.thechildhealthsite.com 5.45%
7. United Nations www.un.org 3.77%
8. Reuters AlertNet www.alertnet.org 2.89%
9. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent www.ifrc.org 2.40%
10. Tsunami Help tsunamihelp.blogspot.com 2.07%


Contact: For media inquiries or to schedule an analyst interview, please contact Lizzie Babarczy: press@hitwise.com (212) 380 2910.


About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com

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