• by May 14, 2001

Jupiter Media Metrix today released the Media Metrix U.S. Top 50 Web and Digital Media property ratings for April 2001. While online usage among all age groups increased over the past year, the largest gains were made by the coveted advertising demographic of persons 18-24, as well as persons 55 and over. Between April 2000 and April 2001 the number of 18-24 year-olds and persons 55 and over who used the Internet and other digital media grew 32 and 33%, respectively, while overall usage of the Web grew 19% over the same period.

Moreover, while 25-34 year-olds comprise the largest age group online, 18-24 year-olds and persons 55 and over collectively outnumbered them by 5.5 million in April 2001, up from 2.0 million in April 2000.

"These rapidly increasing age groups, which often have more leisure time than other demographic segments, are driving fundamental shifts in the digital media landscape," said Doug McFarland, president of Media Metrix. "While the college-age demographic has long been sought-after, marketers and online advertisers must not forget baby boomers' strong buying propensity and potential for sheer audience size."

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: Thegourmet.com, a front page for NetIdentity, which provides personalized domain names, with 2.1 million unique visitors; Ellisislandrecords.org, a site offering genealogy records from Ellis Island, with 1.9 million unique visitors; and bargain-hunting sites Savingsfinder.com and Bargainandhaggle.com, with 1.2 million and 813,000 unique visitors, respectively. All of these sites were among the top ten newcomers in April 2001.

MediaMetrix says that flowers, gifts and greetings sites, driven largely by the Easter and Passover holidays, grew from 16.5 million unique visitors in March 2001 to 20.1 million in April. American Greetings, driven by the April holidays, as well as the addition of Egreetings.com to its network, increased from 7.5 million unique visitors in March 2001 to 11.5 million in April. Over the same period, the Excite Network's Bluemountainarts.com grew from 11.6 million unique visitors to 13.9 million, and Hallmark.com grew from 2.1 million to 3.7.

Sites to break into the April 2001 Top 50 include: New York Times Digital, the online network of the New York Times publishing company, at number 43 with 6.7 million unique visitors; Flipside Sites, a gaming network which now includes the Uproar Network, at number 22 with 11.4 million unique visitors; Colonize.com, an e-mail publishing site, at number 36 with 7.7 million unique visitors; Homestead.com, a Web publishing and services site, at 37 with 7.5 million unique visitors; and Americanexpress.com, the site of the credit-card company, at number 45 with 6.6 million unique visitors.