May’s data is here and it’s hot! It was a big month and the data shows some tell-tale signs that Twitter’s days of monster growth are waning, Microsoft’s $100 million marketing budget for Bing may be paying off, and the sour economy is not negatively impacting summer vacation plans.

Twitter Site Visitors Put on the Brakes

It had to happen eventually, and May was the month that traffic to Twitter.com started to show signs of fatigue (up 1% to 19.7 Million Unique Visitors). While this is not the whole story behind the emerging Social site because users often interact with Twitter without visiting the actual site, it is a sign that new user growth in the U.S. may be flattening. Stay tuned for more on this one going forward.

Big May for Microsoft

The Softies had a busy month up in Redmond, spending big budgets to launch Bing as well as a new version of their Zune player. Early indicators point to some solid buzz around both products, with traffic to zune.net increasing 13% to 708,000 UVs, and Bing driving 635,000 people through the door.

Home and Garden

April showers have clearly given way to May flowers, at least in some parts of the country – sites spanning the Home and Garden category got a nice bump in May, as consumers took to their yards, tended to gardens, and fully embraced the warmer weather. Notable movers included Home Depot’s homeimproverclub.com (up 132% to 500,000 UVs), managemyhome.com (up 52% to 458,000 UVs), backyardgardener.com (up 26% to 531,000 UVs), and hgtv.com (up 24% to 5.5 Million UVs).

Domestic Travel Heats Up

Budgets may be tighter this year, but all signs point to consumers still making vacation plans for the summer. Visitor traffic increased to the National Parks and Services site, nps.gov (up 14% to 3.2 Million UVs), and local theme park sites, like hersheypark.com (up 47% to 416,000 UVs). As a result, major hotel sites like holidayinn.com (up 18% to 979,000 UVs), bestwestern.com (up 11% to 1.9 Million UVs), and daysinn.com (up 14% to 1 Million UVs) all saw a lift alongside rental car sites, which were also positively impacted – budget.com (up 25% to 1.7 Million UVs), hertz.com (up 1.7 Million UVs), and avis.com (up 10% to 1.4 Million UVs).

See you at the Show: Movie Ticket Sites

Some blockbuster films hit the box office in May, including Star Trek, Terminator, and Up. As a result, traffic to movie ticket sites like fandango.com (up 29% to 8 Million UVs), moviefone.com (up 23% to 5.2 Million UVs), and movietickets.com (up 28% to 3.7 Million UVs) increased considerably.

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