Hitwise News Release

Web surfers take a punt on searches for million dollar question

MELBOURNE; October 20, 2005- Television viewers scrambled to the Internet to pre-empt Rob Fulton’s answer that won him the ultimate prize in a first for popular television show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. According to Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, visits to Television - Fansites websites surged by 12.6% on the night of the show, October 17, as host, Eddie McGuire asked, which of four popular ‘60s TV shows premiered first.

As Fulton reasoned his choice between, Bewitched, Get Smart, Hogan’s Heroes and I Dream of Jeannie, web users made their bets. Hitwise Search Intelligence reveals that guesses indicated by volume of searches, in order were, ‘bewitched’, ‘get smart’, ‘i dream of jeannie’ then ‘hogans heroes’. There were over 2,100 unique search terms that referenced the premiere of each show. The following day, October 18, users queried the purchase of DVDs, with terms including ‘hogans heroes buy dvd’ and ‘get smart dvd’.

The Bewitched and Elizabeth Montgomery website (www.bewitched.net) rocketed in the Hitwise rankings to become the most popular Entertainment – Personalities website. The unofficial website of Get Smart, Would You Believe (www.wouldyoubelieve.com) attracted more visits to its website on the night of the quiz show than when lead actor, Don Adams died on September 26, 2005.

This begs the question – how ubiquitous is search engine use during quiz shows? A recent contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire commented he would have to call a friend to see if they could “Google it”. Earlier in February this year there was a massive spike on searches to ‘supremes first hit’ as celebrity contender, Shane Warne missed out on the correct answer, which anyone using the Internet could have told him was, Where Did Our Love Go.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.au