HITWISE UK ONLINE UPDATE

US Interest in Brand Beckham Increases

London, 16^th January 2007 - As the news broke last week that the Beckhams were taking on LA, UK and US internet users turned to the web for the latest information on one of sport's biggest ever deals and to find out about David Beckham's new club.

Hitwise data shows that UK internet searches for 'David Beckham' were up 4-fold for the week ending 13^th January 2007 and surpassed searches for 'cristiano ronaldo' who is currently in the running for 'Player of the Season' for Manchester United, Beckham's old club.

Searches for Beckham's new club 'la galaxy' increased from a base of zero to overtake searches for the footballer himself. Last week searches for 'la galaxy' were almost 30% higher than those for 'david beckham' and 'la galaxy' was the 13^th most searched-for term of almost 7,000 terms that resulted in traffic to the Hitwise Sports - Football category, ahead of a number of premier English football clubs like 'aston villa' and 'blackburn rovers'.

Hitwise data reveals that 30% of UK internet visits to www.lagalaxy.com went on to visit the Major League Soccer gear website www.mlsgear.com where you can buy kit for all the US Soccer teams.

US Interest in the Beckham enterprise increases

Hitwise United States data shows similar interest to the UK, as visits from US internet users to the Los Angeles Galaxy's official website www.lagalaxy.com took the site from relative obscurity to number 8 in the Hitwise Sports - Soccer category, whilst US searches for 'david beckham' quadrupled in the week ending 13^th January 2007.

Whilst the gamble seems to be paying off with interest in David Beckham soaring, 'soccer' has a long way to go in the US to catch up with Baseball and American Football. Last week, the share of US internet visits to Football sites was nearly ten times that to Soccer websites, and Baseball sites attracted three times the share of visits, despite a 36% single week increase in US visits to websites in the Soccer category.

Brand Beckham extends to Victoria, with US internet searches for 'victoria beckham' up more than 10-fold last week. Whilst searches for the former Spice Girl may be buoyed by rumours that she has been asked to participate in a Playboy shoot with Hugh Hefner's current girlfriends, Wikipedia.org was the second biggest recipient of traffic from the term 'victoria beckham', behind Yahoo!, suggesting US internet users are keen to find out more information about her.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

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Jannie Cahill
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