NAPSTER NUMBER ONE ONLINE
Napster.com unseated RealPlayer.com as the busiest entertainment site last week in some surveys, while its potential shutdown helped other MP3 file-sharing sites reach record traffic levels, as well.
According to PC Data Online, Napster had 5.8 million unique visitors for the week ending July 28, the same day the U.S. Court of Appeals allowed it to remain in business for the next few months.
Nielsen/Net Ratings, another traffic monitor, estimates that 849,000 people, or 3% of all Internet users, visited Napster in the final hours before the site was supposed to shut down on Friday (hitdailydouble.com, 7/28).
Other music sites benefiting from Napster's legal woes include Gnutella, which had 4.7 million page views. A spokeswoman for the site said Gnutella was averaging 72,000 hits per hour, compared to the usual 1,800 hourly hits; and Scour, which had 1.29 million unique visitors last week, according to PC Data Online.
