Press Release

ClickStream Technologies Finds U.S. Democrats Are More Active Consumers of Online News Than Republicans in Preparation for Tuesday’s Election.

BERKELEY, CA – November 4, 2008 - As the 2008 presidential election approached, ClickStream Technologies' standing panel of U.S. internet users showed that U.S. Democrats ramped up their consumption of online news more so than Republicans, even when it came to conservative websites such as foxnews.com, where Democrats performed, on average, twice as many mouse clicks as their Republican counterparts.

Based on the most-visited news websites for the two major parties, Republicans were slightly more likely to visit the most popular news websites (see National Top 10 list), but Democrats were more engaged news consumers, performing more clicks than Republicans on every news website analyzed. Democrats also showed a greater monthly increase in activity on news websites than Republicans in the months leading up to the election.

Whether McCain supporters are less engaged in online activity than Obama supporters or just getting their news from other sources is unknown, but few news sites other than the top 10 were found in the list of thousands of websites visited by more than one user in the study.

Additional Findings

• Democrats are more likely than Republicans to visit online.wsj.com, nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, usatoday.com, and news.google.com
• Republicans are more likely than Democrats to visit abcnews.go.com, foxnews.com, and newsweek.com
• Users in the “swing” states of Missouri, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, and Colorado were slightly less likely than the national average to visit the National Top 10.
• Compared to the national average, 18-25 year-olds are by far the least likely age group to visit major news websites, with only 55% visiting any of the websites on the National Top 10 list.
• Adults aged 55-64 were most likely to visit the National Top 10 list of major news websites, with 81% of that group visiting the websites on that list.
• Foxnews.com visitors were 36.6% male and 63.4% female.  Males on average performed almost twice as many clicks as females on foxnews.com.
• Democrats on average performed almost twice as many clicks as Republicans on foxnews.com.
• news.yahoo.com, msnbc.msn.com, and cnn.com were consistently the top 3 news websites for all demographic groups.

Background/Methodology

From May to November 2008, ClickStream Technologies recruited 2,400 U.S. internet users over the age of 18 to complete a survey and install ClickSight®, a patent-pending data collection tool which records click-level user behavior data across all browsers and applications. In addition, ClickSight® reports on dozens of data points relating to the user’s computer configuration. Over 6 months of click data (more than 350 million user actions) was collected by ClickSight® and segmented by each user’s self-reported survey responses that were collected at the time of recruitment, which included basic demographic information as well as the political party with which the user was registered.

Additional Notes

- Margin of error +/- 1.88%
- Participants were recruited through a market research firm which awards cash and prizes in exchange for completing online surveys.
- Sample is self-reported (in initial recruitment survey) as 65.5% female, 34.5% male; 48.4% married; 76.4% Caucasian, 5.5% African American, 1.58% Asian, 1.73% Hispanic.

About ClickStream Technologies

Founded in 2003, ClickStream Technologies provides technology usage metrics to the world’s largest software and hardware developers. Our data-collection tools and standing panel of U.S. internet users create a rich, dynamic feedback loop between the people who develop technologies and the people who use them.
ClickStream's products and services deliver business value in every facet of the software cycle from product planning and development to solution deployment, employee productivity and e-learning. For more information about ClickStream Technologies, please visit www.clickstreamtech.com

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