Commentary

Online

One of the first and most popular applications of the Internet, online news has become an even more essential resource for Americans looking to keep abreast of developments in Iraq. In fact, according to comScore, major news sites posted an 82 percent increase in U.S. site visitors on Monday, March 24, compared to an average of the four previous Mondays ending March 9 (prior to the Azores Summit and President BushÕs ultimatum to Iraq).

With limited availability of TV and radio coverage during the workday, Internet users at the workplace often rely on the Internet as their primary source of up-to-date news. Major news sites saw an average increase of 85 percent in at-work visitors, compared to an increase of only 13 percent for at-home visitors.

MSNBC.com is still on top in unique visitors, followed by CNN.com, Time.com, NYTimes.com, and FoxNews.com.

comScore reports that not only has the war had a major impact on the number of people visiting news sites, but it has also affected the intensity with which they visit them. With a record number of correspondents covering the war in Iraq, the world's major news organizations are able to quickly update their websites with the latest news and graphics from the front.

Americans -- again, particularly those at work -- are clearly utilizing this near-constant flow of information. In fact, as ground forces pushed into Iraq on Friday, March 21st, Americans visited the 10 major news organizations an average of 21 percent more often from workplace PCs. The average at-work visitor to USAToday.com visited the site three times or more on Friday, 42 percent more often than normal.

Not surprisingly, topics related to the war in Iraq were among the most searched-for terms at the Web's major search engines and portals. With news that Al Jazeera was broadcasting footage of captured Americans, "Al Jazeera" quickly became one of the most searched-for terms. (Despite site outages, Aljazeera.net, the Arabic language site of the satellite network, drew 560,000 Internet users in the U.S. alone the day the footage was broadcast -- an increase of more than 2,000 percent over an average of the four previous Mondays ending March 10).

One of the Internet's key benefits as an information source is its unique ability to quickly provide global perspectives. Web logs, or "blogs," are online journals that are quickly gaining popularity as a medium to express personal views. Dear_raed.blogspot.com, thought by many to be the only Web log or "blog" operating in Baghdad, drew more than 46,000 visitors in the early stages of the war. This site, which was virtually unheard before hostilities, has since received national news coverage and global exposure.

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