“The show must go on!” …This is precisely what the 80th Annual Academy Awards are doing, despite the preceding months filled with writer strikes and naysayers. The Oscars are one of the most important nights for the Motion Picture industry and generate a lot of media buzz around the nominated films and actors. So what are the hottest spots on the net to find the scoop on this year’s Oscars?

Top 10 Destination Domains Findings:

• Oscars.org (the home of The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) and oscar.com (the home of the Annual Academy Awards) are not surprisingly the top two sites for anything and everything Oscars.
• The specialized Oscar sections of yahoo.com and aol.com catapulted these portals into the Top 10 list; MSN’s Academy Awards sections failed to attract the same attention falling to number 28 on the list.
• The specialist imdb.com fell behind the generalist wikipedia.org. Imdb lost this battle despite the fact that it is devoted exclusively to films and television and even has a link to its Oscars section on the homepage.
• Filmsite.org, a small film appreciation site which typically attracts between 200-250 thousand unique visitors is up there playing with the big leaguers. Never underestimate the focused and determined little guy.
• Entertainment Weekly is dominating the pre-awards traffic. Notable competitors include variety.com at number 20 and people.com all the way at 101. I am interested in seeing if this trend continues after the show airs.
• With the home field advantage and a prominent link to the Oscars section on it’s homepage, the LA Times catapulted into the Top 10 list, leaving behind The New York Times (49), CNN (62), ABC (71), and USAToday (72).

And although I failed miserably at correctly predicting the winners last year, I will give it another shot this year. If searches were used as votes by the AMPAS, George Clooney will win Best Actor, Ellen Page will win Best Actress, and Juno will take home the statue for Best Picture. Be sure to tune into ABC at 5PT/8ET for the live telecast to see who really walks away with Oscars.

I have to start this post with a shout-out to the Boston Red Sox, the 2007 World Series Champions. As a Bostonian myself and the sister and sister-in-law of Denverites, this year’s World Series was the center of a pretty heated family feud. I am glad to report that the better team came out victorious.

Like nearly every other Denverite, my siblings were hoping to score coveted tickets to one of the World Series game played at Coors Field. As the dutiful sister I am, I (and everyone else in the world) attempted to log on to coloradorockies.com on Monday, October 22 as soon as tickets were released. Despite my hour long efforts, I was unable to connect to the Rockies’ servers. I am sure I looked something like the frustrated fan to the right.

Not surprisingly, the Rockies released a statement later that day indicating sales were suspended due to a system crash that prevented the site pages from loading. The FBI is currently looking into allegations that system failure was actually a result of an “external, malicious attack” on the servers. Despite this set back, they set up shop again the next day and successfully sold all of the remaining tickets within 2 ½ hours. I was still unable to connect to the Rockies’ server the next day, but apparently thousands of other people were.

So what kind of traffic was necessary to take down the Rockies sales site? I examined traffic to colorado.rockies.mlb.com as well as the Californian based evenue.net, the ticketing web site used for sale transactions.

To put the level of traffic to the Rockies’ site on October 22 into perspective, I looked at total traffic to mlb.com as well as the subdomains traffic for the 4 ALCS and NLCS teams. The above graphs show the share of page views and time spent for these 5 segments. For both these metrics, the Rockies’ site contributed about half the total daily traffic to mlb.com.

While the Rockies represented a substantial portion of the mlb.com pie through the playoffs, the traffic to their site on October 22 and 23 was exceedingly high. The following graph shows the Rockies’ daily share of mlb.com traffic for the entire post session.

There is no question that millions, of people were trying to buy Rockies tickets on line. So how did that translate into traffic for evenue.net? Here is a similar time series of metrics for the evenue.net’s daily share of total internet traffic for the month of October.

Notice the large jump in traffic on the 22nd followed by the even larger jump on the 23rd when fans were actually successful in connecting with the web server. While I am not an FBI agent, nor do I play one on TV, it is suspicious that the evenue.net servers would be able to process the large volume of hits on the 23rd, but not the smaller volume the day before. It is also interesting to note that since the Compete panel is comprised of consumers’ clicks and does not include spider or bot activity, we did not pick up the 8.5 million reported hits on October 22. Conclusive evidence of an “external, malicious attack”? I think not. Food for thought? Definitely.

Any good statistician would tell you that gambling is a waste of time and money. Lets face it, you have a better chance of being struck by lightening while being hit by a car than you do of winning a lotto jackpot. Despite this knowledge, the thought of walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars is just so alluring! As many of you know, I succumbed to the draw of the lottery last spring when the Mega Millions jackpot reached record highs. I am glad to report that I successfully resisted trying my luck at the most recent mind-bogglingly large Mega Millions and Powerball jackpots ($314 and $330 Million, respectively). (I wonder what the odds are of both national game jackpots reaching over the $300 Million mark!) But just because I overcame my urge, did not mean that others across the country followed suit, as can be seen by traffic to megamillions.com and powerball.com. Much like my previous lottery blog, I looked at traffic to the Mega Millions and Powerball homepages relative to the jackpot sizes.

Not surprisingly, traffic to each site jumped the day after each lottery drawing as people scrambled to check if they had become millionaires over night. Since these two jackpot streaks occurred almost simultaneously, I compare site traffic to see if one game was more popular than other.

Continue reading “Lottery Fever - Mega Millions & Powerball Jackpots Driving People Online” »

Two weeks ago, a coworker and I decided to try our luck at the record-breaking megamillions jackpot game. We made a pact to buy tickets and split the winnings. If everything had gone according to plan, we would currently be working remotely from New Zealand, sipping daiquiris and chilling with Kiwis (the bird, not the fruit). Sadly, this dream did not come to fruition, as two other people walked away with our $390 million prize.

After doing a little research in the Compete data files, I soon learned that we were not alone in our misfortune. Traffic to megamillions.com steadily rose as the jackpot climbed, peaking for the week of March 4 at 1,014,610 people. Intrigued by these numbers, I decided to investigate the relationship between the jackpot size and site traffic.

The green bars represent the dollar amount (in millions) of the megamillions jackpot for each drawing dating back to February 2. The blue line represents the daily share of visitors for megamillions.com. (Daily share of visitors shows the percent of people who visited a site versus everyone surfing the web that day.) Traffic to the megamillions site jumps the day after each drawing and then drops back down until the next drawing. The larger the jackpot, the larger the spike in traffic.

The growth from peak to peak is even more astounding. The following graph shows the velocity of change in both values since the February 2 drawing.

Jackpot value and share of visitors grew at similar rates for the first three weeks, but on March 3, share of visitors surpasses jackpot value. On March 7, the day after the $390 Million drawing, share of visitor was more than 750% larger than it was on March 3. So even if you didn’t strike it rich a few weeks ago, at least you can take comfort in knowing that a lot of people out there can empathize with you. Better luck next time lottery player!

With the Oscars just around the corner, you can practically smell the designer clothing and expensive jewelry in the air. This Sunday night, Hollywood’s biggest and brightest stars will strut their stuff on the red carpet for the 79th Academy Awards. While some of you might be wondering which star will don the best attire, who will deliver the best performance, or simply who will forget their underwear, most of us are dying to know who will bring home the coveted gold statuette!

While I was unable to break into the Oscar vault to reveal who the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) voted for, I can reveal which films and actors have generated the most buzz on line. If unique hits to imdb.com, the most popular site for anything and everything film related, were used as votes, this years winners would be…

Despite a slow beginning, Leonardo DiCaprio swoops in to capture the award for the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.

Also in a come from behind victory, for her performance in Little Children, Kate Winslet wins Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role.

In a land slide victory, the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the Year goes to The Departed.

And the Oscar in my favorite category, Best Animated Feature Film of the Year, goes to Cars.

Tune into ABC this Sunday at 8et to see how well the Academy did at picking your favorites.

Out of all the mouth watering pastries, tantalizing desserts, and delicious breads Pillsbury has produced over the years, I still believe the Doughboy is Pillsbury’s best creation. I fell in love with the incredibly cute and exceedingly poke-able Doughboy the very first time I saw him wiggle and heard him giggle. Over the years, Poppin’ Fresh has captured the hearts of many, becoming the quintessential face of Pillsbury.

For those of you who can’t get enough Poppin’ Fresh fun, pillsbury.com gives you several ways to get your fix. You can deck out yourself and your home with Doughboy apparel, merchandise, and collectables from their on line store. If this is not enough, customize your computer with downloadable Doughboy buddy icons and wallpaper. You can also watch TV advertisements featuring Poppin’ Fresh and outtakes from the filming.

For a more interactive approach, and my favorite part of the site, you can create your very own Dancin’ Doughboy. You can make Poppin’ Fresh twist, wiggle, and shake his groove thang by choosing from six different dance moves, including The Robot, The Hustle, and a little disco ditty. Select a song and a grand finale gesture and, voila! you have your very own Dancin’ Doughboy. You can create countless combinations of dance moves, all of which are highly entertaining and quite adorable. In July, a little over of 21,000 people have discovered the unparalleled joy of seeing Poppin’ Fresh busta move on the dance floor. Share this hidden treasure by creating your own Doughboy performance and then sending it to a friend. Oh, and while you are at pillsbury’s site, check out the delicious recipe and meal ideas to create even more Doughboy fun.