• April 13, 2001

Jupiter Media Metrix today released the Media Metrix U.S. Top 50 Web and Digital Media property ratings for March 2001. While the average number of days per month people used the Internet in the last two years grew 5.6%, from 14.2 days in March 1999 to 15.0 in March 2001, the average number of hours per month people spent online increased nearly 57.8%, from 12.8 hours to 20.2 over the same period.

Highlights of the Media Metrix March 2001 Digital Media and Web Ratings:

* Top Newcomers - This month's notable top newcomers - sites that appeared in the ratings for the first time and had a minimum of 500,000 unique visitors -- include: Mirreentry.com, a site dedicated to the reentry of the Russian space station, with 887,000 unique visitors; Sportsinteraction.com, a sports-betting site, with 702,000 unique visitors; and Bearshare.com, a site offering a free file-sharing program similar to Gnutella, with 520,000 unique visitors. All of these sites were among the top ten newcomers in March 2001.

* Traffic to Sports Sites Increases - Traffic to sports sites overall increased amidst NCAA March Madness and Major League Baseball spring training, with unique visitors increasing from 22.4 million in February 2001 to 24.0 million in March. Sites with notable increases in unique visitors between February 2001 and March include: Mlb.com which increased 162.6 percent to 2.5 million; Ncaa.org which increased 100.6 percent to 510,000; Sportingnews.com which increased 97.8 percent to 1.7 million; Sportsline.com sites which increased 51.5 percent to 5.7 million; Fansonly.com which increased 28.9 percent to 1.9 million; and ESPN sites which increased 28.7 percent to 7.9 million.

* Breaking Into the Media Metrix Top 50 - Sites to break into the March 2001 Top 50 include: X10.com, a discount retail store, at number 32 with 8.4 million unique visitors; Lowestbids.com, a real-time auction site, at number 39 with 7.5 million unique visitors; Internetfuel.com, an Internet marketing site, at number 42 with 7.5 million unique visitors; RealNames.com, a provider of a Web-naming and navigation platform, at number 43 with 7.5 million unique visitors; SBC Communications, a new consolidation of telecommunications sites, at number 44 with 7.3 million unique visitors; and EA Online, a group of gaming sites and online applications, at number 47 with 7.1 million unique visitors.