• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 30, 2001

Crisis News on the Net

According to a study by Jupiter MMXI as reported by InternetNews, an average of 11.7 million Americans visited online news sites each day the week after the Sept.11 tragedy, almost double the 6 million who visited news sites in the week before the attack. In addition to news sites, the Red Cross Web site (RedCross.org) averaged 398,000 unique visitors per day during the week.

Among online news providers:
- ABCNews.com, experienced a surge of more than 360%. Daily unique visitors grew to 1,257,000 in the week ending Sept. 16.
- CNN.com logged 4.6 million unique visitors each day during the week after the attack, making it the sixth most visited site in the United States with a total of 17.2 million unique visitors.
- The BBC Web site grew by more than 260%, from 146,000 to 526,000 average daily U.S. unique visitors.

Top U.S. News Sites in Wake of Sept. 11 Attack Week Ending Sept. 16

+-----------------------+-----------+--------+  | Site                  | Seven-Day | Reach  |  |                       |    Unique |        |  |                       |  Visitors |        |  |
|    (x000) |        |  +-----------------------+-----------+--------+  | General News Category |    34,451 | 46.4%  |  | CNN.com               |    17,247 | 23.2%  |  | MSNBC.com             |
14,994 | 20.2%  |  | ABC News              |     5,469 |  7.4%  |  | CBS.com Sites         |     4,842 |  6.5%  |  | NYTimes.com           |     4,536 |  6.1%  |  | WashingtonPost.com    |     4,430 |
6.0%  |  | Slate.com             |     3,443 |  4.6%  |  | USAToday.com          |     3,367 |  4.5%  |  | Foxnews.com           |     2,934 |  4.0%  |  | BBC.co.uk             |     2,624 |  3.5%  |
| LA Times              |     1,343 |  1.8%  |  | AP.org                |     1,221 |  1.6%  |  | Boston.com            |     1,006 |  1.4%  |  | Miami.com             |       966 |  1.3%  |  |
Philly.com            |       841 |  1.1%  |  | NYPost.com            |       820 |  1.1%  |  +-----------------------+-----------+--------+  

Source: Jupiter MMXI

TributetoHeroes.org, the site for the celebrity telethon, generated at-home traffic of more than 1.2 million unique visitors over the course of three days beginning Friday, Sept. 21, according to NielsenNetRatings, but only 35% of the site's audience (or 420,000 unique visitors) actually visited the donations page. The site's audience was comprised of 60% females and 40% males.

Chuck Davis, president and CEO of BizRate.com, said "The e-commerce industry is beginning to stabilize following a brief period of sharp decline in online sales brought on by the attacks," said. "From this point forward, we anticipate a strong recovery as Americans heed the advice of the nation's leaders and resume normal activities, including shopping."

BizRate.com expects a healthy fourth quarter to generate $11.55 billion in online sales, a 25 percent year-over-year increase. The fourth quarter is historically the strongest quarter for e-tailers due to high volumes of holiday sales, and BizRate.com expects 33 percent of all 2001 online sales to be generated between October and December.

E-Commerce in Wake of Sept. 11 Attack

+----------+----------+--------------+  |   Date   |  Online  |  Percent of  |  |          |  Sales   | Normal Sales |  |          | $in Mil) |    Volume    |  +----------+----------+--------------+
| Sept. 10 |  $92.41  |     100%     |  | Sept. 11 |  $56.29  |     61%      |  | Sept. 17 |  $82.49  |     89%      |  | Sept. 24 |  $89.68  |     97%      |  +----------+----------+--------------+

Source: BizRate.com

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