Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Yellow Book Scores Big on Web Ranking Reports

comScore Media Metrix recently released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2008. The analysis named Yellow Book Network as the top-gaining site position for the month with a 54% gain to 13.5 million visitors. Again, stating that Yellow Book is strong and substantial company growing in leaps and bounds. See the complete comScore Media Metrix analysis below.

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comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings for March

(Yellow Book Network and MLB.com Lead Top-Gaining Properties)

RESTON, VA (April 14, 2008) comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. March saw traffic increase to online radio, gambling and retail-health care sites.

“American sports factored in prominently for the top gaining categories and properties in March,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “The NCAA tournament drove substantial traffic to online gambling sites during the month, while the start of spring training made MLB.com one of the top gaining properties. Both events also contributed to ESPN.com’s surge in the top properties rankings.”

Top-Gaining Sites for March: Yellow Book Network secured the top-gaining site position for the month, with a 54-percent gain to 13.5 million visitors due, at least in part, to a new partnership with addresses.com. Baseball spring training and fantasy team drafts prompted a flood of earnest fans to MLB.com, which jumped 50 percent to 9.8 million visitors. Bankrate.com Sites witnessed a 46-percent increase to 5 million visitors with the addition of the InsureMe.com entity in March.

Radio Sites See Surge in Visitation: Radio sites experienced a sharp increase in traffic in March with the category growing 27 percent to 61.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. AOL Music led the category with 21.9 million visitors (up 5 percent), following by Yahoo! Music with nearly 20.8 million visitors (up 4 percent) and Clear Channel Online with 11 million visitors (up 2 percent). Other significant increases were experienced by Pandora.com (up 9 percent), Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (up 11 percent), and Disney Music (up 17 percent).

Online Gambling Traffic Propelled by March Madness: The NCAA basketball tournament, also known as “March Madness,” attracted a flurry of online bettors, prompting a 14-percent gain to the online gambling category. Sportingbet PLC increased 35 percent to 975,000 visitors, UPICKEM.net jumped 174 percent to 396,000 visitors and SportsBetting.com rose 114 percent to 145,000 visitors.

Walgreen Co. Leads Retail – Health Care Category: Retail – Health Care sites experienced a 12-percent increase in March to 26.3 million visitors, as Walgreen Co. led the category with 5.4 million visitors (up 10 percent). Drugstore.com, Inc. captured the second position with 3.7 million visitors, followed by CVS with nearly 3 million visitors.

Top 50 Properties: The top 10 properties maintained their positions from February with Yahoo! Sites continuing to lead as the top property with 139.5 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 137.5 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 121 million visitors. ESPN jumped 12 spots on the popularity of March Madness and anticipation of the 2008 Major League Baseball season. Gains were also experienced by AT&T (up 8 spots to #18 with 31.3 million visitors), Target Corporation (up 5 spots to #20 with nearly 30 million visitors), and CBS Corporation (up 6 spots to #24 with 28.6 million visitors).

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking: The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.

About comScore Media Metrix: comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About comScore: comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate.

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