Q: What is the News Index?
A: The Akamai Net News Index is the world's first and only daily Web traffic benchmark that tracks where news is being consumed on a global basis. Akamai, as the delivery platform for more than 100 global news portal companies, has a unique view into the daily Web traffic of major news sites. Akamai has been in business for seven years, and serves content on behalf of the majority of the world's leading online news portals. Distributing billions of page views daily for these news information sites, Akamai is in the unique position to be able to track news consumption on a global scale. At any point in time, millions of PC users (and increasing numbers of cell phone and other PDA users) are online consuming news.
Q: Why is this information important?
A: Reports show that of the most common activities conducted on the Internet, consuming/accessing news is surpassed only by using e-mail and conducting a search. In fact, four out of five of all adults online have accessed news portals within the last week. Recent events show that when news occurs, the Internet has become the primary means for accessing information because of the Net's accessibility, convenience, breadth of data, and ability for the end user to control the specificity and customization of the news. Since consuming news is such a big part of our daily lives, tracking where news is consumed, and which news stories attract the most online attention are critical measurements in determining a variety of geographic and sociological trends.
Q: What information will the Akamai Net News Index give me?
A: Up-to-the-moment data on the consumption of news on a global basis
Insight into how the Internet is being used to consume various news stories
Socio- and geographic- trends about who consumes news, from where, and how
Valid data on the impact and popularity of news stories
- How popular is Jackson verdict vs. Peterson verdict
- Did more people tune in online for Reagan funeral or Pope funeral
- Create rolling data that can create comparisons over time (i.e. Steroid Hearings vs. Filibuster Hearings)
Q: How is the Akamai Net News Index data collected?
A: Without releasing any proprietary data about its individual news customers, Akamai is aggregating data on behalf of over 100 leading news portal customers from around the world. Collectively, this data will determine the consumption level of news in real-time, capturing total visitors per minute on a global scale and by geography, during a 24-hour period. By plotting visitors per minute for each day, the Akamai Net News Index will be the first online barometer to measure interest levels by region and per major news event.
Q: Who can use the Akamai Net News Index?
A: The Akamai Net News Index is the only available means to chronicle news events, and thus is a source for determining which news events have attracted the most attention for a week, month, quarter, or year. This can be a tool for reporters, and other interested parties, to measure global attention to real-time events.
