2008 U.S. Digital Marketing Trends

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) February 10, 2009 --

One of the trends that heavily affected U.S. Internet usage in 2008 was the economic meltdown, with several of the top gaining site categories reflecting the current environment. Notably, the Job Search category ranked as the top-gaining site category for the year, up 51 percent to nearly 19 million visitors in December 2008, as the millions of Americans affected by the deteriorating job market sought online job resources for assistance. Other top-gaining categories in 2008 included Coupons (up 46 percent to 31.6 million visitors), Politics (up 43 percent to 12 million visitors), and Classifieds (up 27 percent to nearly 53 million visitors).

comScore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
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1. Job Search +51%
2. Women +46%
3. Coupons +46%
4. Politics +43%
5. Gay/Lesbian +41%
6. Online Gambling +36%
7. Radio +30%
8. Family +29%
9. Online Gaming +27%
10. Classifieds +27%

Other key findings highlighted in the report include:

- Search query volume on the five core search engines increased 21 percent in 2008 from the previous year, with Google Sites accounting for nearly 90 percent of this growth.

-Online video viewing accounted for 12.5 percent of Americans’ total time spent on the Internet in November 2008, up from 8.5 percent the previous year.

-U.S. Internet users viewed a total of 4.5 trillion display ads during the past twelve months, with the average person viewing more than 2,000 ads per month.

-Retail (non-travel) e-commerce spending grew 6 percent to $130.1 billion in 2008. The year ranked as the softest year for retail e-commerce spending growth since comScore began tracking the industry in 2001.

-The mobile industry continued to witness the growing popularity of smartphones in 2008 with subscriptions to smartphones increasing more than 100 percent during the year.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/companyinfo

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