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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Music

Michael Jackson, Twitter and TMZ

June 26, 2009

Following the tragic death of Michael Jackson last night, UK Internet visits to his homepage increased 17 fold. Yesterday www.michaeljackson.com was the 9th most visited Music website in the UK, and the highest ranked artist homepage. TMZ, the website that... Continue reading...

Initial Bing stats

June 08, 2009

Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, was announced by Steve Balmer on May 28 and officially launched on June 3. I’ve held off putting up our initial UK statistics until now for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t think of... Continue reading...

ITV.com traffic reaches record high thanks to Britain’s Got Talent

June 01, 2009

The Britain’s Got Talent final attracted 19.2 million viewers on Saturday night, making it the most watched non-sporting television programme since 2003. The ITV show, which was won by dance troupe Diversity rather than favourite Susan Boyle, picked up almost... Continue reading...

Festival fever and a good week for the NME

April 08, 2009

The sun may be shining, but it’s not quite time for the music festivals yet (it has to start raining for that to happen). However, following the release of the Reading and Leeds Festival line-ups in the NME last week,... Continue reading...

Celeb and entertainment searches dominate Google News

March 26, 2009

Last week we revealed that Twitter had overtaken Google News in the UK. However, although everyone’s favourite micro-blogging service receives more UK Internet visits, Google News remains the greater source of traffic for News and Media websites. As the chart... Continue reading...

“Money Saving Expert” Martin Lewis the most searched-for personality in the UK

February 18, 2009

Martin Lewis, creator of the “consumer revenge” website Money Saving Expert was the most searched-for personality by UK Internet users during the 12 weeks ending January 3 2009. There were 11% more searches for Martin Lewis than US President Barack... Continue reading...

eMusic and the Long Tail

January 20, 2009

The online music retailer eMusic has put out some interesting data that, it is claimed, supports the famous “Long Tail” theory of online retail. Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired magazine, coined the phrase in a 2004 article,... Continue reading...

Vouchers vs. sales: battle of the online discounts

January 13, 2009

Around this time last year we reported that post-Christmas sales searches had trebled; a couple of weeks ago we noted that this year the increase was just 3.2%. However, if Christmas 2007 was the year that online sales went mainstream,... Continue reading...

Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai most searched for Bollywood stars

January 07, 2009

Last week UK Internet searches for a portfolio of 100+ Bollywood stars was 68% higher than a year ago. Here is a list of the top 20 most searched for actors and actresses from that portfolio over the 4 weeks... Continue reading...

Healthy New Year? Gym traffic up, diet searches down

January 05, 2009

Happy New Year! Many readers - including the lucky ones who got a Wii Fit for Christmas - will be hoping for a healthy new year, and they’re not alone. It’s the time for New Year’s Resolutions, and getting fit... Continue reading...

Last minute surge in online Christmas shopping

December 23, 2008

There was a last minute surge in UK Internet traffic to online retailers at the end of last week. Looking at UK Internet traffic to Shopping and Classifieds websites, here are the annual increases in visits vs. the comparable day... Continue reading...

Diana Vickers leading the X Factor pack online

November 07, 2008

Now that we’ve got the American election and the Glenrothes by-election out of the way, we can finally direct our attention to more important voting matters. Last week we showed how ITV’s The X Factor was picking up more online... Continue reading...

James Bond: Quantum of Solace online

November 05, 2008

Last week saw the premier of the 22nd official Bond film, Quantum of Solace. With the success of Casino Royale in November 2006, Quantum of Solace has been one of the most anticipated films of the year. The chart above... Continue reading...

Kerry Katona and YouTube

October 27, 2008

Following her much talked about appearance on ITV’s This Morning show last week, searches for ‘kerry katona’ have gone through the roof. One website that received a lot of traffic from searches for the former Atomic Kitten singer was YouTube.... Continue reading...

Top bands / artists: Katy Perry and Kate Nash

September 05, 2008

Here are the top band / artist searches sending traffic to social networks and music blogs during August. Starting with the social networks, Katy Perry, who topped the British and American charts over the summer with her hit “I Kissed... Continue reading...

Fast moving search terms: Olympics, celebrities and exams

August 11, 2008

No prizes for guessing what event dominated the fast moving search term list in the UK last week. Here’s the top 10. 1. beijing 2008 olympic games 2. olympics 3. craig jones 4. morgan freeman 5. olympics 2008 6. bernie... Continue reading...

Top bands / artists online: August 2008 chart

August 07, 2008

Here are this month’s lists of the top 20 band / artist searches sending traffic to social networking sites (e.g. MySpace, YouTube, Last.fm, etc.) and the most popular music blogs for the 4 weeks ending August 2nd. First up social... Continue reading...

Fast moving search terms: Batman, Now Compilations, Festivals, Runescape

July 28, 2008

The 10 fastest moving search terms in the UK last week were: 1. now 70 2. christian bale 3. global gathering 4. heath ledger 5. batman 6. dark knight 7. womad 8. shipwrecked 9. runehq 10. hamfatter Four of these... Continue reading...

Hottest bands on the social networks and music blogs

July 10, 2008

A few months ago we posted a list of the top 10 band / artist searches sending traffic to MySpace, the primary destination of searches for new artists. We’ve decided to expand the list to cover our whole Social Networking... Continue reading...

Festivals and band searches

June 23, 2008

Glastonbury - festival of mud and music – officially starts on Friday, and the fastest moving search term sending traffic to our Music category last week was ‘glastonbury line up 2008’. It’s likely that some of these searches relate to... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Music | Search

Coldplay’s website traffic surges thanks to free single download

April 30, 2008

The BBC is reporting that there has been “massive demand” for Coldplay’s new single, Violet Hill, which has been made available as a free download from the band’s website. Our Internet usage data backs this up - as you can... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Music

Top 10 UK search terms: social networks dominate the list

April 14, 2008

We have just announced the winners of the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards 2007, so congratulations to all of the websites that placed within their industry top 10. In addition to the top websites, we also announced the top 10... Continue reading...

Brit Awards, MySpace and the top new bands

February 19, 2008

The Brit Awards take place tomorrow evening and there are three awards up for the public vote: best British Breakthrough Act, best British Live Act, and best British Single. The latter is tricky to analyze using search data, but I... Continue reading...

Amy Winehouse: the benefits of good and bad publicity

February 12, 2008

“Camden Town is burning down” claimed Amy Winehouse during her Grammy acceptance speech and, unfortunately, parts of it actually were. The fire that ravaged through Camden Market at the weekend received a lot of coverage in the press, and as... Continue reading...

Yahoo! and Microsoft: UK perspective

February 05, 2008

Following on from Bill’s and Heather’s posts, I wanted to share some UK data on the proposed Yahoo! and Microsoft deal. First up: webmail services, and as the chart below illustrates, Microsoft has a dominant market share with its Hotmail... Continue reading...

UK Internet traffic to newspaper websites reaches a new high

January 29, 2008

UK Internet traffic to newspaper websites reached its highest level in over two years last week off the back of a number of big news stories. For the week ending 26 January 2008, 1.48% of all UK Internet visits went... Continue reading...

Sales searches trebled in 2007

January 03, 2008

The number of UK consumers searching for post-Christmas sales online more than trebled during the 2007 holiday period. There were 249% more UK internet searches for the term ‘sales’ for the week ending 29th December 2007 than for the comparable... Continue reading...

Lyrics, X-Factor and Christmas number one

December 11, 2007

Until recently, people used to complain that the traditional Christmas number one race had been hijacked by novelty records from the likes of Mr Blobby (1993) and Bob the Builder (2000). In fact, novelty records seem to make it about... Continue reading...

Radiohead, Freakonomics and free music

October 10, 2007

Radiohead grabbed headlines last week by announcing that fans will be allowed to name their own price when downloading the band’s new album, In / Rainbows. The band is currently taking pre-orders via their official website, which saw an 11-fold... Continue reading...

Control, Manchester and Factory Records

October 09, 2007

Last week I was in Manchester for the excellent Manchester Digital conference. As a music fan, the city is forever linked in my mind with the Factory Records and the late Anthony H. Wilson. There have been a number of... Continue reading...

Bratz the most popular toys in the run up to Christmas

October 05, 2007

Following a charity interlude, here is the penultimate Christmas shopping 'hot products' list. Analysis of the top search terms sending traffic to top 100 UK online retailers shows that the most popular girls' toys, dolls, are 29% more popular than... Continue reading...

High School Musical dominates in the year of the downloads

September 28, 2007

Following yesterday's post on the top gadgets in the run up to Christmas, today I reveal the most searched for entertainment products. The most noticable trend is the massive increase in searches for entertainment downloads, which currently outstrip searches for... Continue reading...

O2, Led Zeppelin and the iPhone

September 19, 2007

Two big music stories have caught the media’s attention over the last couple of weeks. Firstly there was the announcement last Wednesday (September 12th) that the remaining members of Led Zeppelin are to reform for a one off reunion concert... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 05:00 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Gadgets | Music | Search

Cheap vs. Free

September 13, 2007

This week's Guardian Siteseeing column was inspired by Sandra's and Bill's recent posts on search value determinants. The main similarity between search behaviours in the UK and the other regions is the use of 'cheap' to search for travel and... Continue reading...

Amy Winehouse and Klaxons receive Mercury Prize boost

September 07, 2007

Nu-ravers Klaxons were the surprise winners of the Nationwide Mercury Music Prize this week, beating favourite Amy Winehouse. However, it was the ‘troubled’ soul singer that received most of the press attention following her performance at the awards ceremony. Internet... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 02:45 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Music | Search

Last.fm predicts the future of music

August 24, 2007

It’s been a good year for Last.fm, the social network / Internet radio station. It’s grown its market share amongst music websites by 22%, sold itself to CBS in May for $280m, and has now struck a deal with music... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 04:11 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Music

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.