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our worst moments
Big kickup in traffic to humor web sites in October
By Marty Beard
Even through tragedy and gnawing uncertainty the will to laugh never disappears, and so it is the case as America comes to terms with the war on terrorism and the rising threat of anthrax.
Humor is the hot web thing these days.
While traffic to news sites jumped in September following the attacks of the 11th, by October Americans began turning to the web in much greater numbers in search of a laugh or two.
What they find they are forwarding to friends.
Humor and entertainment sites saw among the largest traffic gains in October, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, with much of those increases accounted for by links forwarded by email.
One humor site, Madblast.com, experienced a 4,072 percent increase in traffic from the prior month.
"People are seeing innovative humor. It’s allowing them to take a respite, and they are aggressively forwarding these things," says Jupiter Media Metrix’s vice president of media research, Charles Buchwalter.
"This underlines the very persuasive strength of viral marketing on the web."
Madblast came in at No. 26 in the rankings of the most-visited sites on the web, with 11.5 million visitors who spent an average of 3.5 minutes on the site.
Madblast, part of the eUniverse entertainment and game network, features games, animation and entertainment news and promotions.
Two of the most popular short cartoons on the site are war-related.
One cartoon depicts Taliban members saying things like, "Women cannot attend schools."
But when a visitor clicks on a Venus symbol, Wonder Woman, Xena the Warrior Princess, Lara Croft and Velma from "Scooby Doo" arrive and beat them into submission.
Another Madblast cartoon is titled: "Bin Laden Has Nowhere To Run--Nowhere To Hide." It stars a Colin Powell avatar singing the ditty to the tune of "Banana Boat (Day-O)," with President Bush keeping time on bongos as an animated bin Laden flees bombs.
More than 11 million people so far have seen the cartoon.
Such diversions are in keeping with both the frustration and the patriotic fervor that have gripped Americans since Sept. 11.
"It gets to the core of what many Americans feel, a desire to lash out and to find some way to rationalize these impossible developments," Buchwalter says.
"And to be honest, if people can do it in this manner, then I don’t think that too many people would find it that inappropriate."
A couple of other humor sites also posted noticeable spikes in traffic. One, Gotlaughs.com, received 5.6 million unique visitors, an increase of 218 percent, and another, Fieler.com, got 5.4 million visitors.
Meanwhile, there appears to have been a slackening of interest in news.
For example, the web site of The New York Times experienced an 8.1 percent decline in traffic over September, with 9.5 million unique visitors in October versus 10.3 million for the prior month.
Similarly, Gannett’s web properties slipped to No. 40 from No. 29 in September, with a 10.6 percent traffic drop.
"While September’s newcomer sites focused on news, charity and victims' aid, October’s newcomers focus on patriotism and prayer," says Buchwalter.
"Online behavior has consistently mirrored public sentiment in the five years that we’ve been measuring the internet, and this appears to be as true during October as ever."
The tragedy spawned many new web sites as well.
Online flag vendor USAFlagsdirect.com received 3.5 million unique visitors, and Deskflag.com, a site where people can download an animated American flag, got 3.1 million unique visitors.
Presidentialprayerteam.com, a sort of virtual prayer circle where people can organize prayer meetings for President Bush and his advisors, got 1.1 million unique visitors, and Oneangel.net attracted 632,000 unique visitors.
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TOP 50 WEB PROPERTIES |
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|
Property |
Oct. Visitors (000 |
Sept. Visitors (000 |
August Visitors (000 |
July Visitors (000 |
Chg over Prev. 3 Months’ Avg (%) |
|
1. AOL Time Warner Network |
83,871 |
81,128 |
78,543 |
73,310 |
9.4 |
|
2. Microsoft Sites |
70,720 |
70,007 |
67,402 |
63,894 |
5.4 |
|
3. Yahoo |
68,364 |
65,568 |
64,683 |
64,388 |
5.4 |
|
4. Terra Lycos |
39,514 |
38,005 |
38,818 |
37,631 |
3.6 |
|
5. X10.com |
39,334 |
34,734 |
34,622 |
39,567 |
8.3 |
|
6. Vivendi Universal Sites (7) |
36,458 |
29,410 |
23,001 |
21,707 |
47.6 |
|
7. About/Primedia (6) |
33,220 |
29,885 |
29,428 |
28,496 |
13.5 |
|
8. eBay (11) |
25,945 |
22,158 |
24,900 |
22,129 |
-14.8 |
|
9. Walt Disney Internet Group (8) |
25,386 |
25,675 |
21,496 |
20,050 |
13.3 |
|
10. eUniverse Network (13) |
25.156 |
19,721 |
17,290 |
14,581 |
46.3 |
|
11. Amazon |
24,298 |
21,692 |
22,950 |
21,576 |
10.1 |
|
12. Excite Network (9) |
21,723 |
23,783 |
28,679 |
28,685 |
-19.7 |
|
13. CNET Networks (10) |
21,368 |
22,308 |
21,989 |
20,906 |
-1.7 |
|
14. Google (16) |
21,146 |
18,035 |
16,653 |
15,159 |
27.3 |
|
15. American Greetings (17) |
20,814 |
17,044 |
9,712 |
8,936 |
74.9 |
|
16. InfoSpace (14) |
20,670 |
19,640 |
20,767 |
20,712 |
1.5 |
|
17. Viacom Online (15) |
17,008 |
19,175 |
17,139 |
16,881 |
-4.1 |
|
18. AskJeeves (20) |
16,741 |
15,237 |
14,496 |
14,390 |
13.8 |
|
19. Columbia House Sites (24) |
15,560 |
11,815 |
10,830 |
-- |
37.4 |
|
20. AT&T Web Sites (22) |
15,248 |
13,897 |
13,290 |
12,516 |
15.2 |
|
21. Real.com Network (18) |
14,692 |
16,648 |
14,054 |
14,171 |
-1.8 |
|
22. Ticketmaster Sites (26) |
13,090 |
11,323 |
11,946 |
12,237 |
10.6 |
|
23. Gator Network (27) |
13,015 |
11,003 |
11,041 |
11,278 |
17.2 |
|
24. Homestore.com Network (21) |
12,863 |
14,166 |
7,352 |
8,694 |
27.7 |
|
25. iVillage |
11,802 |
11,352 |
13,267 |
14,187 |
-8.8 |
|
26. Madblast.com |
11,557 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
27. iWon (34) |
11,404 |
9,986 |
10,931 |
10,023 |
10.6 |
|
28. NBC Internet Sites (19) |
11,346 |
15,483 |
11,807 |
12,288 |
-14 |
|
29. Homestead.com (40) |
11,050 |
8,866 |
8,640 |
9,553 |
22.5 |
|
30. EarthLink (23) |
10,818 |
12,561 |
9,825 |
9,894 |
0.5 |
|
31. United Online |
10,763 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
32. ClassMates.com Sites (38) |
10,587 |
9,140 |
10,305 |
9,534 |
9.6 |
|
33. News Corp. Online |
10,531 |
10,714 |
7,183 |
-- |
17.7** |
|
34. BizRate.com |
10,353 |
8,377 |
8,934 |
7,307 |
26.2 |
|
35. LookSmart |
10,177 |
9,813 |
8,590 |
9,192 |
10.6 |
|
36. ABPharmacy.com (33) |
10,149 |
10,063 |
-- |
-- |
0.9* |
|
37. The Weather Channel (36) |
9,831 |
9,205 |
10,612 |
9,989 |
-1.1 |
|
38. RealNames.com |
9,682 |
8,162 |
7,302 |
-- |
25.2** |
|
39. Monster.com Sites |
9,642 |
-- |
8,309 |
7,205 |
24.3 |
|
40. Gannett Sites (29) |
9,559 |
10,692 |
7,845 |
7,712 |
9.2 |
|
41. New York Times Digital (30) |
9,516 |
10,359 |
-- |
-- |
-8.1* |
|
42. SBC Communications Sites (31) |
9,297 |
10,281 |
9,079 |
9,011 |
-1.7 |
|
43. NextCard.com (37) |
9,281 |
9,162 |
9,904 |
6,780 |
7.7 |
|
44. FortuneCity Network (39) |
9,236 |
8,907 |
8,889 |
8,890 |
3.8 |
|
45. Postmastergeneral.com |
9,235 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
46. EA.com and Applications (48) |
8,766 |
7,806 |
7,647 |
7,717 |
13.5 |
|
47. Verizon Superpages |
8,689 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
48. AmericanExpress.com |
8,454 |
-- |
9,157 |
7,954 |
-1.2** |
|
49. Coolsavings.com |
8,386 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
50. Travelocity |
8,325 |
-- |
8,476 |
8,782 |
-3.5** |
|
Underline indicates a site not in the Top 50 in
September |
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November 15, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
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