Crisp Wireless announced the introduction of the Crisp Wireless Index (CWI), a quarterly barometer of consumer activity online via mobile devices based on usage across sites of select
publishers in the Crisp Network. According to the inaugural Crisp Wireless Index, Presidential candidate Barack Obama beats rival Hillary Clinton by more than 2012% to take the number one most searched term on mobile search engines.
Among the other top search terms the CWI identifies, Heath Ledger was fourth and Britney Spears was the sixth most searched term. “Sex” and “Porno” were the number 8th and 9th respectively, followed by “American Idol” at number 10. Hillary Clinton came in at number 14.
The CWI also shows that a majority of web traffic, 53%, is driven by on-deck carrier portals such as AT&T, Sprint/Nextel and Verizon. The AT&T portal accounts for 29.5% of that traffic, followed by Sprint/Nextel with 13% and Verizon with 12.5%. Visits via search engines are 7.5%, and the remaining 39.5% of traffic derives from users who type in URLs, use bookmarks or access sites from text-based links. The 39.5% of traffic has gained ground since Q4 2007.
“We created the Index to provide a consistent and reliable measure of mobile interactions within and across key mobile content categories identifying important trends in mobile web usage and adding to our understanding of mobile consumer engagement,” said Boris Fridman, CEO, Crisp Wireless. “The Crisp Wireless Index data comes from the more 14 million mobile users who surf the web via Crisp Wireless’ premiere publisher network of more than 200 mobile web sites. Unlike other mobile studies that only sample a couple thousand users and then extrapolate data to make broad sweeping statements about mobile usage, the Index succinctly identifies very significant and sustained trends where consumers are spending their time on the mobile web.”
According to the CWI data, users are coming back more frequently (representing greater “stickiness”) as Visits/Unique visitor increased 32% from 4Q07 to 1Q08. Sites drawing the highest percentages of visits per unique are in the Women’s Lifestyle, Youth, and Television & Entertainment categories, with 3.6, 2.8 and 2.7 Visits/Unique respectively.
The CWI identified a number of other interesting mobile trends and statistics, including:
— Search engine traffic did increase slightly to 7.5% in 1Q08 from 7.3% in 4Q07. Local newspapers and television sites were the biggest beneficiaries, with 27% and 12%, respectively, deriving their traffic from search engines.
— Nearly 30% of the search engine traffic for the average nationally branded mobile web site is driven by users who searched the specific property name (i.e. USA Today, Elle, etc.).
— Average mobile web users with interest in the automotive category accrue nearly twice as many page views than those of national news sites (8 Pages/Visit vs. 4 Pages/Visit).
— Total traffic in the Crisp Network increased by 24% between 4Q07 and 1Q08
— Part the increase in off-deck traffic this quarter can be attributed to iPhone users who search the Web with Apple’s Safari browser. Of those sites that have an optimized iPhone site, iPhone users account for an average of 31% of site traffic
The Crisp Wireless Index is an industry report that is published quarterly by Crisp Wireless. The index is a measure of unique mobile interactions within and across key mobile content categories including but not limited to: National News, Local TV News, Local Newspapers, Magazines, Online Services, Women’s Lifestyle, Men’s, Sports, Youth, Autos, Business, and TV & Entertainment, among others. The information provided within the report is gathered from select data captured from across Crisp Wireless’ Mobile Publisher Network of over 200 premium mobile web sites and its more than 14 million mobile web visitors. Additional information is available to customers within the Crisp Wireless Mobile Publisher Network.