Blackout Drives Online Banking and Movies

  • August 22, 2003
Over the period of the Blackout which hit numerous states across America on Thursday and lasted into Friday night in some areas, U.S. Internet users jumped online to find news, check airline flight information and determine whether the blackout was terrorist related or not, according to HitWise data. On Thursday, the day the blackout occurred, industries which saw the largest increase in U.S. traffic were News sites, Yahoo! Movies and some Financial sites. On Friday when the power was out and returning slowly to affected areas, the industries which saw the biggest increase in U.S. traffic were Banks, Airlines and Home Depot. Particular categories which saw the largest increase in traffic from Thursday Aug 14th - Friday August 15th were Entertainment - Movies, Business & Finance - Utilities, Business & Finance - Banks & Financial Institutions, Business & Finance - Industries, Entertainment - Mobile Phones, Sports, Automotive, Entertainment - Art, Food & Beverage, and Lifestyle - Hobbies & Crafts. Movies websites which saw the largest increase during the blackout (Thursday Aug 14th - Friday August 15th) were: BigScreen - www.bigscreen.com (+147%); Carmike Cinemas - www.carmike.com (+84%); NY Times Movies - movies.nytimes.com (+75%) and Excite Movies - movies.excite.com (+60%). Utilities websites which saw the largest increase were About Power - power.about.com (+562%); Wisconsin Public Service - www.wisconsinpublicservice.com (+287%); Hawaiian Electricity Company - www.heco.com (+238%) and The Nuclear Energy Institute - www.nei.org (+152%).
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