As gas prices continue to increase, greater numbers of Americans are looking for ways to alleviate the pain at the pump. According to comScore Networks, increased traffic to gas-price-monitoring web sites was just one of the trends that emerged in the firm’s April survey of consumer activity online. Gasbuddy Organization, which runs sites like GasBuddy.com, reported visitor numbers tripled between March and April, hitting 2.3 million. The U.S. Department of Energy-run web site FuelEconomy.gov saw a 172 percent traffic jump over the same period. April also saw a sizable increase in visitors to real estate web sites, where traffic grew 12 percent over March and 23 percent during the past year. Zillow.com, which made its debut in February, saw 2.3 million visitors in April. The company gives consumers a way to easily compare real estate properties and get information without assistance from a real estate agent (see Zillow Aims for Realty Riches). Greater numbers of Americans also visited home improvement sites in April. During the month, all traffic to such sites increased by 12 percent. Home Depot (10 percent) and Lowe’s (15 percent) also saw more visitors to their sites.

SOURCE: comScore Networks

Distance Learning Growing

The number of adults looking to further their education is making up a bigger part of enrollment at traditional and for-profit higher education institutions. According to the 2006 State of Continuing Education Marketing report, conducted by PennStateUniversity, enrollment in distance learning programs will grow 10 times faster than on-campus enrollment over the next decade. Currently, some 45 percent of college and university enrollees are adult learners. Revenue from continuing education jumped 67 percent since 2004. According to the report, this growth is being driven by a corresponding growth in interactive marketing. More than half of survey respondents believe electronic media and marketing will be an integral component of continuing education marketing campaigns over the next 10 years. By then, it is expected to be predominantly online, relationship-driven, personalized, and specialized.

SOURCE: ClickZ Network

Meh2

The social networking area is going from red hot to white hot, as recent research from Nielsen//NetRatings reports seeing rapidly rising traffic to such sites. During April, the top 10 sites served 68.8 million visitors, a 47 percent increase over the same period last year. MySpace continues to lead the segment, serving 38.4 million visitors—a 367 percent jump over April 2005. The company’s tremendous success has resulted in scores of imitators hoping to strike it rich with their own unique take on social networking (see The MySpace Wannabes). Google’s Blogger network came in second on the NetRatings list with 18.5 million visitors, followed by Classmates Online (12.9 million) and YouTube (12.5 million). MSN Groups rounded out the top five with 10.6 million visitors.

SOURCE: Nielsen//NetRatings