His numbers would put him way ahead in the race
By Heidi Dawley Jul 10, 2008
In the polls at least, Barack Obama and John McCain are in striking distance of each other and will certainly get closer in their race for the White House.
But go online and it's a very different story. Obama has an overwhelming lead.
In terms of web traffic, Obama's site had 2.3 million unique visitors in May to McCain's 563,000, according to Nielsen Online.
On Facebook, Obama has 1.1 million friends compared to McCain’s 162,244, according to the techPresident blog. The story's similar over on MySpace and YouTube. And with all those friends, donations have been pouring in too.
This raises two most interesting questions.
Has the internet been underrated as a political medium? And just how well will Obama's huge lead translate into votes?
Conventional wisdom has the web all but a non-player when it comes to swaying voters, with local TV still seen as the most effective medium, and the one that gets almost all the candidates' ad dollars.
But Obama's success with the web would seem to defy that wisdom.
“Without question the internet has been shown to be an increasingly important way for candidates to communicate with and organize with their constituents, to the extent that now the internet is perhaps the most effective way to organize a constituency,” says Jon Gibs, vice president, media analytics at Nielsen Online.
On the web, Obama certainly has one key advantage: youth. His supporters skew younger, and they're presumably more internet savvy than McCain’s older, Republican constituency.
But Obama has also worked hard to extend his reach beyond that natural following. Early on he hired some top internet talent, including Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook.
“Obama has had a true and defined online vision for the way he wants to get his constituents to interact with him,” says Gibs. “He has done a very good job of integrating the internet and using it not as a cute sideline but as integral to the overall approach.”
And it's not about dollars as such, says Gibs.
“From a strategy point of view we as an industry have a habit of looking at who is spending more dollars. We extend the ad idea to the internet – the idea that if you are spending more ad dollars you are getting more votes,” says Gibs.
But that turns out to be the wrong way to evaluate the roll of the internet in the vote-getting process. Says Gibs: "Campaigns are looking at the internet as an organization vehicle, rather than a push-advertising or pull-dollar package."
That’s not to say the candidates are not advertising on the internet. In fact they are, although they are running very different campaigns.
Obama is more involved in display advertising, including as banner ads. Impressions for Obama’s imaged-based online advertising hit 105.7 million, versus 8.5 million for McCain. When it comes to sponsored link impressions, McCain’s camp came out on top, with 5.4 million impressions compared to 1.8 million for Obama.
***
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended June 29, according to Nielsen Online, Google claimed the top spot among parent companies, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online. For the fifth straight week, the top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft.
Experian Group Limited held the top advertiser spot for the third straight week with 2.8 million impressions, with NexTag No. 2 at 2.1 million. With 12.6 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, well ahead of No. 2 MySpace at 5.3 million.
Sessions per person per week were equal to the previous week at 16, and domains visited per person also were flat at 40. PC time per person slipped 3 percent compared with the previous week to 17 hours and 14 minutes.
Top 25 parent companies Through June 29
#
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
94,689
65.7
0:36:40
2
Microsoft
86,802
60.3
0:44:39
3
Yahoo!
79,012
54.8
1:04:19
4
Time Warner
62,098
43.1
1:17:54
5
News Corp. Online
46,077
32.0
0:48:06
6
eBay
32,225
22.4
0:54:43
7
InterActiveCorp
31,797
22.1
0:10:53
8
Apple Computer
23,990
16.7
0:34:00
9
Wikimedia Foundation
23,439
16.3
0:10:56
10
Amazon
22,917
15.9
0:16:18
11
Landmark Communications
22,318
15.5
0:14:27
12
Walt Disney Internet Group
22,041
15.3
0:24:30
13
New York Times Company
21,026
14.6
0:08:34
14
Turner Network (Time Warner)
19,437
13.5
0:21:35
15
AT&T Inc.
17,988
12.5
0:20:20
16
RealNetworks, Inc.
16,134
11.2
0:16:08
17
Facebook
14,646
10.2
0:44:01
18
CraigsList
14,105
9.8
0:36:00
19
Bank of America
13,598
9.4
0:20:28
20
CNET Networks
13,293
9.2
0:07:10
21
Comcast Corp.
13,207
9.2
0:33:18
22
Verizon Communications
13,090
9.1
0:18:01
23
E.W. Scripps Company
12,664
8.8
0:06:15
24
Viacom Digital
12,546
8.7
0:26:23
25
United Online
12,499
8.7
0:26:30
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 brands Through June 29
Parent
Unique Audience (000)
Reach %
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss)
1
Google
86,687
60.2
0:26:01
2
Yahoo!
78,089
54.2
1:04:29
3
MSN/Windows Live
65,738
45.6
0:45:20
4
AOL Media Network
55,315
38.4
1:24:45
5
Microsoft
52,223
36.3
0:17:03
6
Fox Interactive Media
39,796
27.6
0:52:11
7
YouTube
36,905
25.6
0:27:40
8
eBay
26,030
18.1
0:59:09
9
Apple
23,990
16.7
0:34:00
10
Wikipedia
23,439
16.3
0:10:55
11
Weather Channel
19,710
13.7
0:15:17
12
Blogger
18,909
13.1
0:05:49
13
Amazon
17,709
12.3
0:16:27
14
Ask Search Network
17,040
11.8
0:10:26
15
Real Network
16,134
11.2
0:16:08
16
Facebook
14,646
10.2
0:44:01
17
CNN Digital Network
14,323
9.9
0:19:08
18
About.com
14,137
9.8
0:03:24
19
Craigslist
14,105
9.8
0:36:00
20
AT&T
13,559
9.4
0:23:33
21
Bank of America
12,934
9.0
0:20:53
22
Glam Media
11,328
7.9
0:10:56
23
Comcast
9,953
6.9
0:42:09
24
Chase
9,823
6.8
0:14:19
25
Target
9,303
6.5
0:05:10
Source: Nielsen Online
Top 25 advertisers (excludes house ads)
Through June 29
#
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Experian Group Limited
2,804,427
2
Vonage Holdings Corp
2,067,234
3
NexTag, Inc.
1,751,298
4
Scottrade, Inc.
1,354,915
5
Microsoft Corporation
1,168,780
6
Activision, Incorporated
993,140
7
AT&T Corp.
969,555
8
Netflix, Inc.
885,409
9
General Electric Company
880,429
10
Verizon Communications, Inc.
809,637
11
Deutsche Telekom AG
637,202
12
United Online, Inc.
630,834
13
The Walt Disney Corporation
588,156
14
Privacy Matters
527,150
15
Edmunds.com, Inc.
494,888
16
ALLTEL Corporation
490,417
17
Ford Motor Company
467,966
18
InterActiveCorp
416,962
19
General Motors Corporation
409,732
20
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
407,827
21
Washington Mutual, Inc.
368,125
22
Unclassified Local Advertiser
360,408
23
American Express Company
350,780
24
Capital One Financial Corporation
345,366
25
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
336,943
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
Top 25 advertising sites (excludes house ads)
Through June 29
Company
Impressions (000)
1
Yahoo!
12,621,638
2
MySpace
5,268,231
3
MSN
3,404,797
4
Comcast.net
1,199,286
5
AOL.com
1,159,512
6
MSNBC
884,912
7
eBay
877,999
8
FOXNEWS.COM
611,466
9
The Weather Channel
549,602
10
Facebook
547,019
11
IMDb
456,291
12
New York Times
397,704
13
NeoPets
353,227
14
YouTube
352,180
15
Photobucket
298,554
16
Juno
278,969
17
CNN Money
250,408
18
CNN
232,733
19
ESPN.com
209,473
20
NetZero
208,495
21
Project Playlist
205,327
22
Verizon Online
200,334
23
Amazon
193,169
24
Pogo
183,884
25
Excite
182,821
Source: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen Online, AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Also, Nielsen Online, AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service.
