Social Networking Sites Continue to Attract Record Numbers as MySpace.Com

Surpasses 50 Million U.S. Visitors in May comScore Media Metrix Releases May Top 50 Web Rankings and Analysis; Online Interest in World Cup and NBA Championships Heats Up; Spring Upfront Television Season Drives Traffic

comScore Media Metrix today released its monthly analysis of consumer activity at top online properties and categories. In addition to shopping for Moms and Grads, checking out job sites, and staying on top of personal finance and politics in May, Americans also flocked to their favorite TV show and sports sites, including those focused on the World Cup and NBA playoff games. The social networking phenomenon also continued its stratospheric ascent, as MySpace.com reached new heights with 50 million visitors in May and YouTube.com nearly doubled its traffic from April, reaching 12.6 million visitors.

“The popularity of social networking is not expected to wane in the near future,” said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix. “This is a phenomenon we’re seeing not only in the U.S., but also around the world. The challenge for social networking sites will now be monetization and how advertisers will respond to the global marketing potential of these sites.”

Professional Soccer and Basketball Garner Attention Weeks before June Championships

Americans demonstrated their interest in the World Cup soccer tournament and NBA Playoffs in the weeks preceding the June tournaments. As evidence, the NBA Internet Network attracted 6.3 million visitors in May (a 24-percent increase versus April), and fifaworldcup.yahoo.com – the official World Cup site – doubled its traffic, reaching more than 788,000 visitors. Even more impressive was the worldwide traffic to the official World Cup site during the opening days of the tournament, with more than 5 million unique visitors from around the globe visiting the site on the opening day, Friday, June 9. Traffic to the site remained strong throughout the opening weekend, with average daily visitors through Sunday, June 11, surpassing 4.4 million visitors.

Spring TV Sweeps Drive Web Traffic “Upfront” and Center

With spring sweeps in full swing, fans headed to TV Web sites in numbers to check out details for the season finales of their favorite shows. ABC, which aggressively promoted streamed versions of its hit shows “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” was rewarded with a 39-percent increase in visitors to ABC.com, surging to 6.9 million visitors. Traffic to the official “Lost” site increased 71 percent to 1.2 million visitors in May. Meanwhile, the “Desperate Housewives” site attracted 528,000 visitors, up 36 percent from the prior month, and the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” site saw a 41-percent uptick in traffic to 286,000 visitors. The season finale of NBC’s long running ER drove traffic to the show’s site, with 236,000 visitors in May, up 49 percent compared to April.

Moms Receive Buds and Bling for Mother’s Day

Increases in visitation to the Flowers/Gifts/Greetings and Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories categories were likely attributable to shoppers researching and buying gifts for Mother’s Day and graduation celebrations. Traffic to the Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories category increased 15 percent versus April to 15.9 million visitors, with RedEnvelope.com leading the category at 1.6 million visitors (up 25 percent). Traffic to the Flowers/Gifts/Greetings category rose 10 percent in May versus the prior month. This rise helped fuel a 16-percent increase in online sales to the category during the week leading up to Mother’s Day, compared to the same week in 2005 ($195.8 million vs. $168.5 million). Top gainers in the category during May included Proflowers.com and FTD.com, both achieving 120-percent gains versus April (4.1 and 5.4 million visitors, respectively).

Jobs and Finances are a Focus in May

As Americans watched interest rates continue to rise, their visitation to sites in the Financial News/ Research category increased 12 percent in May (up to 48.8 million). Traffic to Financial Information/ Advice sites also increased during the month from 39.9 million visitors in April to 42 million visitors in May, led by traffic increases at Freecreditreport.com (up 21 percent to 6.8 million visitors), and Loanweb.com (up 141 percent to 5.8 million visitors).

Additionally, traffic to job search and career resource sites saw impressive gains (see Table 3) as graduates readied themselves for the real world. Leading the job search sites were CareerBuilder.com Job Search, with 8.1 million visitors in May (a 9 percent increase from April), Monster.com Job Search with 7.3 million visitors (a 9 percent increase), and Yahoo! HotJobs Job Search with 3.4 million visitors (a 12 percent increase).

Visitation to Political Web Sites Increases in May

As the buzz about upcoming Congressional and gubernatorial races grew in May, so did traffic to political Web. In fact, the politics category was the top gaining category in May with 8.1 million visitors, rising 31 percent versus the previous month. Leading sites within the politics category include Capitol Advantage, dedicated to connecting organizations to national and state elected officials, (up 126 percent to 1.6 million visitors); WorldNetDaily.com, independent news site, (up 20 percent to 637,000 visitors) and political action site, Moveon.org, (up 14 percent to 492,000 visitors).

Top 50 Properties

Yahoo! Sites retained its position as the number one property in May, attracting more than 130 million unique visitors, while Time Warner Network traded places with MSN-Microsoft Sites to claim the number two spot, drawing slightly more than 119 million visitors. Social networking site Facebook.com entered the ranking at number 49, attracting 13 percent more visitors than the previous month.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking

In May, Advertising.com retained the number one spot, reaching 83 percent of Americans online. Also within the top ten, advertising networks Tribal Fusion and Casale Media Network claimed the number five and six spots respectively, each reaching more than 100 million Americans. Other noteworthy gainers included Monster.com, which jumped eight spots to number 41, and Travelocity All, which moved up four spots to number 39. Mamma Media Solutions and Whitepages.com both reentered the ranking at numbers 46 and 50, respectively.