The Web and the Super Bowl Effect

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Super Bowl viewers looked at the computer screen while watching the game. According to data released by Hitwise, SuperBowl-Ads.com experienced a 604 percent increase in visits on the big day; many of those visitors came to the site through CBS SportsLine.com.

Ad sites made way for advertiser sites. King Pharmaceuticals saw a 1,727 percent lift in market share on February 4 over the day before. Traffic went to the company's beatyourrisk.com. Budweiser's bud.tv went up 1,401 percent in market share; and Sales Genie saw a 534 percent increase.

Visits to AOL Sports.com increased by 78 percent, while CBS SportsLine increased by 12 percent over the same period.

During the game, Akamai's Net Usage Index for advertising noted an average 160,000 visitors per minute to advertiser Web sites during the game. Average traffic during the two to three weeks prior to the game were about 80,000 visits per minute.

A traffic spike occurred immediately before halftime, when 227,957 visitors per minute were registered. Of those visitors to advertiser sites, 210,893 represented U.S. Internet users. Traffic increased to 282,957 visitors per minute in the last 15 minutes of the game, and approached 300,000 visitors per minute the following morning.

Akamai's Net Usage indices track online consumption for news, retail, music, and advertising categories.

Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 Web sites across 160 industry categories. It collects Internet usage information through a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels. Data are collected in accordance with local and international privacy legislation and are audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers.