US news-seekers are increasingly turning to Internet search engines, video clips and gossip-slingers to sate curiosity about current events, according to a study released on May 1.
Visits to the top 10 news and media websites in the United States dropped by nearly four percent in the past year as people turned increasingly to "non-traditional news websites," Hitwise online intelligence service reported. Meanwhile, websites that "aggregate" news stories by harvesting them online registered increases in visits during the year ending March of 2007, according to Hitwise.
Yahoo! News ranks as the top news website with slightly more than 6.5 percent of the market. A Weather Channel website is second with 4.75 percent of US online news hunting traffic, while CNN barely edged out MSNBC for third place with 3.95 percent.
Google News ranks fourth in popularity with 1.83 percent of the visits. Search engines, online news aggregators and Internet portal front pages are main sources of traffic for traditional news websites, according to Hitwise.
The number of Internet users referred to traditional newspaper websites by the world's most popular online search engine, Google, increased by nearly 30 percent in the past year, Hitwise reported. Internet traffic routed by Google to television or radio station websites rose 35.9 percent during that same period, according to Hitwise.
The rate at which people left news websites to directly view related video clips at online venues such as video-sharing website YouTube has leapt 196 percent in the past year, Hitwise reported.
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