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Traffic to the New York Times web site exploded during first quarter 2003, with readers interested in reading about the war helping NYTimes.com double its March page views compared to last year. Site traffic hit 615 million page views last month compared to 306 million in 2002. For the seventh consecutive quarter, New York Times Digital recorded an operating profit. Revenues grew 21.4 percent from $16.2 million during last year’s fourth quarter to $19.6 million this year. Operating profit increased from $0.2 million to $3.2 million thanks to higher ad revenues from the traffic volume jump. NYTimes.com recorded a one-day record for page views on March 24, one week after President Bush issued his ultimatum to Saddam Hussein. Roughly 30.7 million page views were recorded, including 2.3 million unique worldwide visitors. That broke the record of 29.2 million views set on Sept. 13, 2001. The site averaged 1.7 million viewers per day during March, when page views jumped 24 percent versus February. Multimedia usage increased to 1.3 million users, or more than 70 percent more than January.
Auto makers advertise SUVs heavily online
Automobile makers advertising on the internet have figured out whom to target: those status-seeking, environmentally un-conscious middle class members looking for a sports utility vehicle. According to Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance numbers, nearly half of the ad impressions posted by auto manufacturers during the first quarter of 2003 were for SUVs. The vehicles accounted for 48 percent of auto advertising, totaling 1.2 billion impressions. Cars and vans both claimed 19 percent of the total advertising, posting roughly half a million apiece, while pickup trucks accounted for 11 percent. The specialty auto market, including hybrids, motorcycles and recreational vehicles, made up 3 percent. The most-advertised model was Toyota 4Runner with 534 million impressions. GMC Envoy was second with 355 million. Way behind were the Honda Element (45 million), Nissan Murano (44 million) and Infinity FX45 (40 million).
New wave of spam capitalizes on Iraqi war
The war in Iraq has sparked increased traffic to news sites and aptly named computer viruses. It’s also spurring an increase in spam. The anti-spam technology provider Commtouch reports that daily spam blasts have increased 26 percent from late February to late March. Each spam blast targets 100,000 to several million email addresses. Last week the company reported 1,682 war-related spam blasts in two days. According to Commtouch, not all the spams are commercial. Instead, a new wave of noncommercial spamming, such as war protests, have upped the spam counts in recent weeks. But marketers are taking advantage of the war, too. A T-shirt company reportedly has 17 different war-related subject lines in circulation, Commtouch says.
The latest: Special boots to help walk on water
Walking on water isn’t just for prophets any more. Over the weekend the first-ever Scottish water-walking contest was held at the Edinburgh Science Festival, where teams of scientists competed using nonmotorized devices of their own design. You probably won’t see these at your local sporting goods store anytime soon, but enough scientists have attacked the problem that 21 teams participated. One even managed a world record, completing the 40-meter sprint in 1 minute, 10 seconds. The shoes they used cost less than $80 to make. Americans have been holding such races for more than 10 years and claim faster walking rates at shorter distances. But although a lot of thought has been put into the devices, they really don’t have a strong practical application. They would be useful in case of a flood, which inspired one such competition in Hartford, Conn., but no one has cashed in on it yet.
April 15, 2003© 2003 Media Life
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