Michael Rucker of YouTube recently joined us at the TNS Media Digital CMO Summit and shared some of his views on online video in the Digital 180 interview series. Michael discuss how the differences between broadcast and online video change how marketers should approach each and other trends he sees in online video. Check back next week for more insights from the Digital 180 series.

Enfatico CEO Torrence Boone recently took some time out to share his insights in the latest Digital 180 interview. Torrence talks about the importance of delivering creativity and ideas cost-effectively as well as the relationship between creative and analytic/scientific thinking in marketing. Check back with the Compete Blog for more insights from the TNS Media Digital Summit and the Digital 180.

In the latest installment of Compete’s Digital 180 series Morgans Hotel Group’s CMO, Scott Williams, shares his views about how to remain daring and innovative as a brand during this downturn of the economy. Stay tuned to the Compete Blog for more insights from the TNS Media Digital Summit and the Digital 180.

This week, Compete is introducing Digital 180, an “online TV” series that hunts for new insights by going behind the scenes with some of the industry’s most innovative and influential marketers. It’s no mistake that we’re kicking off Digital 180 at the Digital CMO Summit in Newport, RI. Formerly Compete Customer Day, this event has grown from its humble roots as a gathering of select clients into a who’s who of marketing genius. This year, Digital CMO Summit 2009 featured 150 marketers representing the world’s biggest agencies, leading marketing technologist and, of course, iconic global brands.

For two days, we witnessed the future of our industry. Guided by the event’s theme, “Measuring Up,” the speakers talked about how internet and digital media are transforming their businesses, what they are doing to win online and how they are creating stronger connections between data-driven digital insights and meaningful ROI. Through presentations and panels, we not only learned how other brands “measure up,” but also we took home some never-before-revealed secrets for success.

Moving forward, we’ll continue to deliver interesting, insightful and useful programming through the Digital 180 channel. Through brief interviews, such as the one you’ll see below, and other video content, we’ll show you what leading digerati are thinking and, from time to time, provide our unique spin on news, events and our work. We hope you enjoy Digital 180, and we look forward to hearing your feedback and suggestions.

Another month has come and gone, leaving behind a trail of data and some interesting stories around springtime, sports, and social media. What changes did April bring? We dug into the numbers to look at fast moving sites, traffic trends, and some of the biggest stories of 2009 that we’ve been covering.

Everybody’s asking about it, so we’ll kick it off with Twitter, an ever-growing presence in the social arena. Aided by Ashton, Oprah, and significant media buzz, Unique Visitors to twitter.com increased to 19.4 Million in April, surpassing the New York Times for the first time. Oprah’s first tweet on April 17th delivered the highest Daily Reach ever to the site, with nearly 2% of all Americans online visiting Twitter.

Feeding off Twitter: Sure, Twitter is growing, but so are the many sites that rely on it. Fast movers in April included tweetmeme.com (up 338% to 1.68 Million Unique Visitors), tweetdeck.com (up 69% to 915,000 UVs), twittergadget.com (up 56% to 100,000 UVs), twitpic.com (up 37% to 3.33 Million UVs), and bit.ly (up 53% to 1.81 Million UVs).

Spring Fever: We know that spring is in the air when traffic flow to certain sites pick up. Pet lovers flocked to 1800petmeds.com in April (up 33% to 1.68 Million UVs), green thumbs and lawn caregivers went to scotts.com (up 46% to 710,000 UVs), and traffic to baseball sites were up sharply month over month. Mlb.com was up 62% to 12.25 Million Unique Visitors, and minorleaguebaseball.com also saw a nice bump (up 136% to 1.22 Million UVs). Red Sox Nation will be pleased to know that in addition to kicking off 2009 with 5 straight wins against the hated Yankees, the Sox also won the online traffic battle in April (367,000 UVs to redsox.com vs. 346,000 to yankees.com).

Micro-site Mania: Big upticks to some CPG and food retail micro-sites this month – who said these guys don’t spend online? Between content, contests, and coupons for consumers, some of these branders drove some serious traffic in April. The biggest food related movers included reynoldsrecycled.com (1.64 UVs) Taco Bell’s bajablast.com (up exponentially to 562,000 UVs), cicispizza.com (up 436% to 1.07 Million UVs), Hellmann’s buildtheperfectsandwich.com (up 417% to 441,000 UVs), and kfc.com (up 69% to 1.17 Million UVs).

The Easter Effect: Flower and gift sites saw a nice bump thanks to marketing around the Easter holiday. Ftd.com led the charge (up 282% to 2.73 Million UVs), with proflowers.com (up 59% to 750,000 UVs), and 1800flowers.com (up 26% to 774,000 UVs) also rising in the ranks. Godiva.com also showed a big lift (up 303% to 698,000 UVs).

We’ll keep an eye on all of these stories going forward to see what changes May will bring. In the meantime, find out how a new month of traffic has impacted site traffic, Search, and the overall internet landscape in your industry with all of Compete’s powerful tools on compete.com.

For breaking stories, real time data updates, and to participate in our cool new datanugget Fridays, be sure to follow us on Twitter!

Check out the April monthly data on Site Analytics, Referral Analytics and Ranked Lists.

Highlights this month include a strong showing from MLB.com as the basetball season got under way and the draft bringing a spike to NFL.com during the off-season.

And as a reminder, Search Analytics data is updated daily!