• by January 17, 2001

Walmart.com, the online arm of the popular discount retailer, entered the Media Metrix Top 50 for the first time last month, according to rankings published by Media Metrix, a Jupiter Media Metrix company. The click-and-mortar retailer drew more than 7 million unique visitors to rank No. 41, just behind BarnesandNoble.com and Ticketmaster Online.

The Wal-Mart site also topped the Top 15 Gaining Digital Media/Web Properties rankings, which measures percent change from November to December. Walmart.com jumped from 4,599,000 unique visitors in November to 7,074,000 last month, a 54 percent increase.

Media Metrix noted that six of the 15 top gainers were retail destinations, including eToys, BarnesandNoble.com, Amazon.com and E-Bay.

The E-greetings network saw a 35 percent rise in traffic from month to month, leaping from 4.3 million unique visitors to 5.8 million. eToys gained 16 percent, and BarnesandNoble went up 12 percent.

A large number of holiday travelers and other storm watchers logged on to Weatherchannel.com last month. The site drew 9,092,000 visitors in November, and 12,461,000 in December, a 37 percent increase.

Weatherchannel.com also benefited from a seasonal boost, with the second-largest percentage gain in unique visitors from November to December.

Top 50 Digital Media/Web Properties At Home & At Work Combined in the U.S. December 2000 Measurement Period (12/1/00 through 12/31/00) Rank Top Web & Digital Unique Visitors(000) All Digital Media 81,097

1 AOL Network* - Proprietary & WWW 60,562

2 Yahoo!* 54,626

3 Microsoft Sites* 53,809

4 Excite Network* 30,819

5 Lycos* 29,965

6 About The Human Internet* 21,279

7 Amazon* 21,053

8 Walt Disney Internet Group* 20,469

9 CNET Networks Digital* 19,953

10 eBay* 19,536

11 AltaVista Network* 18,718

12 Infospace Impressions* 18,042

13 Time Warner Online* 17,027

14 NBC Internet Sites* 15,921

15 eUniverse Network* 15,134

16 LookSmart* 13,647

17 GRAB.COM 13,479

18 Real.com Network* 12,753

19 Weather Channel The* 12,461

20 Uproar Network The* 11,889

21 Ask Jeeves* 11,853

22 Viacom Online* 11,825

23 American Greetings* 9,355

24 Network Commerce Inc.* 9,150

25 AT&T Web Sites* 9,121

26 IWON.COM 8,915

27 BIZRATE.COM 8,546

28 COLONIZE.COM 8,496

29 Women.com Networks The* 8,415

30 MyPoints Sites* 8,212

31 JUNO Online Services* 8,113

32 Gator Network* 7,919

33 GoTo* 7,761

34 Snowball* 7,692

35 EarthLink* 7,652

36 FortuneCity Network* 7,638

37 News Corp. Online* 7,397

38 GOOGLE.COM 7,386

39 Barnes & Noble* 7,344

40 CitySearch-Ticketmaster Online* 7,181

41 WALMART.COM 7,074

42 COOLSAVINGS.COM 6,905

43 iVillage.com:The Womens Network* 6,722

44 FOCALEX.COM 6,657

45 JOBSONLINE.COM 6,608

46 HOMESTEAD.COM 6,410

47 eToys Sites* 6,381

48 TOYSRUS** 5,988

49 NetZero Sites* 5,866

50 E-greetings Network* 5,810

* Represents an aggregatio