News and media websites were identified as being among the fastest growing UK sites experiencing a 28 per cent growth this January, according to figures released by Hitwise.
Analysis conducted by the online competitive intelligence provider, compared visits to websites in January 2007 with data collected in January 2006, revealing that news and media websites experienced a 28 per cent year-on-year growth in their market share of UK internet visits.
Both the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian Unlimited websites have also reported a positive start to 2007 with the Guardian confirming a record number of visitors in January (15.7 million visitors confirmed by ABC). And just this week the Financial Times reported a 30 per cent increase in online advertising sales. The FT has recently been experimenting with the way in which consumers can access and use their content by making some of it available for free.
Heather Hopkins, VP of research for Hitwise UK said: “Print media websites enjoyed a strong year…making it one of the fastest growing categories.”
The fastest growing site within the news and media category was Digg.com whose visits grew more than five-fold when comparing January 2007’s figures with those recorded in 2006. However, clickstream data also tracked by Hitwise reveals that the growth of Digg.com was fuelled by games and video sharing rather than news.
