Google Data

Welcome to the third installment of the Ad Planner 1000. This July we naturally saw many summer-related trends on the list as the northern hemisphere experienced the warmer weather.

When the Weather Outside is Delightful
It stands to reason that people would spend more time playing sports in the summer than following them on the web. And at least with a couple of popular sports websites in the AP 1000 that seems to be the case. Fifa.com dropped 54% in the number of unique visitors to their site but still managed to stay in the AP 1000 -- perhaps thanks to the early July fervor leading up to the World Cup finals. NBA.com saw a 31% decline from June as the season ended and ESPN.com saw a quarter (-25%) of their traffic evaporate in July.

Sports are not the only game in town as video game maker Blizzard’s release of Starcraft 2 helped battle.net break into the AP 1000 at #484.

Blockbuster Season

Just as many professional sports go dormant in the summer, blockbusters are there to fill the void. Trying to make a decision about which new movie release to check out this weekend? You aren’t the only one: movie listings and film review sites enjoyed a healthy increase in site traffic in the month of July. Fandago.com and moviefone.com both saw a 11% rise and rottentomatoes.com went up 5%. That trend didn’t leave dvd rental and online movie & TV streaming site, Netflix, in the dust though - their site saw an increase (+12%) in traffic too.

Summer Socials
Summer time is a social time as people take vacation, spend time outdoors and fire up the grill. Could that be one of the reason recipe sites allrecipes.com (+20%) and cooks.com (+10%) saw a healthy rise in the number of visitors to their sites?

At the height of the social season Facebook remains at the top of the list. Facebook.com has been at the top of the AP 1000 since we launched in May and is relatively consistent in the number of unique visitors (up 2% from June). Myspace.com (+11%), linkedin.com (+8%), bebo.com (+5%) and orkut.com +3% all saw traffic increases in July while social sites such as twitter.com (-3%), hi5.com (-10%) and friendster.com (-17%) saw fewer people visiting their sites in the middle of the summer.

A case of spring fever giving way to summer loving? Dating sites zoosk.com (+22%) and match.com (+11%) also fared well in July.

So that was just a highlight of what’s going on with the latest Ad Planner 1000. Check back next month for more insights and observations.