The Olympics and the U.S. Presidential campaign were the primary drivers of Internet traffic during the month of August, leading to increased visits at politics, sports, news and humor sites according to comScore Media Metrix.
The politics category rose 33 percent to 14 million visitors as many Americans focused on the presidential race. The fastest growing category for the month was led by BarackObama.com with nearly 4 million visitors (up 113% from July), while JohnMcCain.com surged 108 percent to 1.4 million visitors.
The humor category also had strong gains in August, growing 12 percent to 16.5 million visitors, partially due to comedy video related to the presidential race. Humor site FunnyOrDie.com climbed 256 percent to 2.4 million visitors.
The Olympics created the most significant gains in sports and news categories. Sports grew 26 percent to more than 93 million visitors, led by Yahoo Sports with 38.5 million visitors (up 76%), NBC Sports with 23.8 million visitors (up 740%) and ESPN with 22 million visitors (up 23%).
General news sites grew 10 percent to 105 million visitors. MSNBC led the category with 44.5 million visitors (up 53%). Yahoo News trailed, growing 15 percent to 44.3 million visitors, followed by CNN with more than 32 million visitors (up 12%).
Google held on to its number one position as the top property for the month, reaching 144.7 million Americans, while Yahoo followed closely with 141.5 million visitors and Microsoft was third with 123.5 million visitors.
“The Olympics dominated the headlines in August, and Americans’ Internet activity reflected their keen interest in their country’s performance at the games,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.
“With the time difference between Beijing and the U.S. creating a substantial lag between many of the live events and their subsequent national broadcast, the Internet was especially critical in keeping Americans current with the latest event results and medal counts.”
