NEW KIDS ON THE METRIX BLOCK

The measurement-happy gang at Media Metrix have come up with yet another Top 10, this one rating the most-visited Web sites launched since January. The winners came from the following categories: entertainment (four entries), finance and Net services (two each), home improvement and e-tail (one each).

Media Metrix's parameters for entertainment include humor—and we use the term loosely. Two of the top-rated new sites, #1 passthison.com and #9 Debsfunpages.com, contain jokes and more jokes, the kind your annoying virtual pen pals bombard you with daily (do not tell them about these sites), thus creating a truly Pavlovian convergence of content and the impulse to share. In the brave new world, we refer to this phenomenon as "viral marketing."

The other two entertainment newcomers are #4 Planetofmusic.com, which breaks down its content by continent, and #8 Netbroadcaster.com, a movie and music streaming site.

According to Media Metrix division AdRelevance, effective online ad campaigns were a significant factor in the numbers of unique visitors attracted by seven of the top 10 sites, while the other three—including the pair of jokers we cited two paragraphs above—racked up big numbers by virtue of that dang ol' viral marketing.

The rest of the Top 10 newcomers were #2 Half.com, a virtual flea market that involves the buying and selling of used books, movies, music and games (the site was recently scooped up by Ebay); #3 Register-once.com, which pays you for sampling goods and services; #5 Paypal.com, which appears to be a sort of online Western Union-type concept; #6 Ourhouse.com, created by Ace Hardware; #7 Onmoney.com; and #10 Firstname.com, which sets up free e-mail domains.

Hitsdailydouble.com fell short by a paltry 1,873, 256 unique visitors.