Alexa Research said that Olympics.com has been the most
heavily visited official Olympic site since the Games began,
receiving more than 100 million page views, more than twice
as many as NBCOlympics.com. The findings are based on
estimates derived from Web pages visited by members of the
Alexa Internet panel between September 15-23. More than one
in four visitors to the site came from either an MSNBC.com
page (17%), an NBC.com page (9.1%) or an NBCi.com page (2%).
Additionally, an estimated 2.6% of NBCOlympics.com's
visitors came from an Olympics.com page. Meanwhile,
Yahoo.com was the third-most popular destination overall for
online Olympic coverage, with more than 11.5 million page
views, topping CNNSI.com with 7.4 million, MSNBC.com with
6.5 million and ESPN.go.com with 5.4 million (Alexa). The
AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW's David Crowe notes that
Olympics.com has received about 6.5 billion hits since the
Opening Ceremonies, and "is now getting between" 500 million
to 900 million every day. The IBM system took 650 million
hits for the 16 days of the Winter Olympics in Nagano in
1998, and "only 180 million hits for the entire Atlanta
Olympics in 1996" (AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW, 9/27).
REUTERS reported that Olympics.com has "already attracted"
7.2 billion visitors (REUTERS, 9/26).
QUOKKA IMPROVING ITS STANDING: Nielsen//NetRatings
reports that during the Games, NBCOlympics.com has "drawn an
increasing number of visitors who are sticking around" the
site for an average of 13 minutes while viewing a total of
54 million pages. Nielsen//NetRatings VP/Analytical
Services Allen Weiner: "Quokka has really earned its stripes
in my mind." USA TODAY's Mike Snider writes the site
"embodies Quokka's approach," as "overlaid links glow with
bright, precise text. Well-organized windows offer a
multitude of features" (USA TODAY, 9/27).
MEANWHILE, IN THE U.S....: The WALL STREET JOURNAL
INTERACTIVE's David Sweet wrote that though the Games "are
in full swing, U.S. sports sites are mainly sticking to
their tried-and-true formula: Football, baseball and
basketball nab top billing." The Sporting News Online
Assistant Managing Editor Benson Taylor: "This time of year
it's NFL, NFL, NFL. That's what our readers want to see.
With everything else going on ... Olympics coverage is going
to suffer." Sweet added that Taylor "thinks the Olympics
received top-story play about 15% of the time during its
first week." Sweet also wrote that when SportsLine.com
"planned its Olympics coverage," Dir of Editorial Steve
Miller "expected the Games would dominate the lead spot
during the week. Instead, because of breaking news and
other factors, he figures the Olympics are story number one
about half the time." Miller: "It's a unique challenge to
get Olympics stuff out there" (WSJ.com, 9/26).
