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POLITICS,
SHOW BIZ NEWS PUSH
INQ7.net to 30M PAGE NEWS
By Erwin Lemuel G. Oliva
THE PRESIDENTIAL campaign and news about show biz personalities
continue to attract the interest of online readers both
here and abroad, and this shows in the latest figures
gathered from INQ7.net, the joint multimedia news website
of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and GMA Network.
If we would base this interest on the number of people
-- a sizeable amount of them Filipinos working abroad
-- accessing INQ7.net, one could see a jump in the number
of page views recorded during the month of January 2004
compared to December 2003.
Based on INQ7.net’s statistics, the website’s
average monthly page views have climbed to 30.5 million
from 23.4 million in December 2003. To non-geeks, page
view counts refer to the number of times a webpage is
accessed during a certain time period. One webpage viewed
online is one page view, but one webpage can contain several
“hits.” Hits refer to the number of webpage
elements (text, links, JPEG images, etc.) contained in
a single page. Thus, a page view count is always smaller
than a hit count, but is a more reliable metric than counting
the number of hits a website gets.
In terms of readership, INQ7.net has also seen an explosive
climb in the number of unique visitors between December
2003 and January 2004. Figures showed that the site had
1.1 million unique visitors as of January 2004, compared
to 739,785 during December 2003.
Interestingly, a closer look at the number of page views
for the whole of 2003 reveals some trends about what Philippine
news have attracted readers in the past year.
Between March 2003 and April 2003, INQ7.net saw a steep
climb in page views to 33.5 million toward April from
26.4 million in March. Looking back, this period was mainly
dominated by news of the infamous kidnap-for-ransom group
Abu Sayyaf, which continue to elude military forces. There
was also news of American troops coming over to the Philippines
to conduct fresh military exercises in Jolo, Sulu. However,
this might have just added some spice to the Abu Sayyaf-related
stories.
What really got the attention of everyone, including the
rest of the world, was the outbreak of the severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS). Considered the biggest health
story of 2003, the SARS, which started in China, crippled
the travel industry of Asian nations. As a result of the
SARS outbreak, Asian economies suffered as businesses
slowed down due to fear and paranoia. Reports of some
Filipinos suspected of having SARS prompted the country
to put up health checkpoints in major entry points into
the country. But news of one Filipino overseas workers
diagnosed of SARS escaping the health checkpoints added
more panic to the paranoia.
Also in April, a bomb went off in Davao City. The bomb
blast killed over a dozen people at a Davao wharf, prompting
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to launch a campaign
against the terrorists believed to be linked with various
Muslim extremist groups.
Another interesting story in April 2003 involved the Supreme
Court's revival of the murder raps against Senator Panfilo
Lacson. Lacson was implicated in the alleged summary killing
of the Kuratong Baleleng gang.
As months passed, it seemed that people grew tired of
hearing about the viral outbreak, the Lacson case, and
terrorism in the southern areas of the Philippines. This
was also reflected in the drop of page views between the
months of May, June, and July 2003.
Toward the end of July 2003, the average page views for
the month of July reached 25.9 million. But from the months
of July to August 2003, the website's monthly average
page views were relatively flat, until September 25 when
Filipino show biz personality Kris Aquino dropped a bombshell
on lover and Paranaque mayor Joey Marquez.
Similar to the recorded page views during the SARS outbreak,
INQ7.net once again saw a dramatic increase in the number
of people accessing the website.
While INQ7.net was reporting about the Jose Pidal expose
involving First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, most overseas Filipinos
were glued to their computers. This was elevated further
when Kris, daughter of former president Cory Aquino, tightened
the screws a notch further on Marquez.
The story, which sounded like one taken out of a telenovela,
revealed a stormy relationship between Aquino and Marquez,
which ended as she disclosed that her lover cocked a gun
and pointed it at her. She even added that Marquez gave
her a sexually transmitted disease. Marquez denied all
these accusations. Not surprisingly, the quarrel ended
in a few days, and the telenovela came to a conclusion
with Aquino and Marquez back together in each others’
arms.
Toward the end of 2003, INQ7.net page views dipped to
23 million but immediately spiked to 30 million with the
start of the presidential campaign period.
All in all, the average page views of INQ7.net have steadily
climbed from 2001 to 2004.
In 2001, INQ7.net page views averaged about 13.3 million
a month. This climbed to 16.7 million a month in 2002.
By 2003, the site’s page views jumped to 26.8 million.
At the start of 2004, the site’s page views have
already hit 30.5 million.
This was also the same case for the website's unique visitors.
From 2001 to 2004, the average number of unique visitors
doubled to 1.1 million in 2004 from 572,926 in 2001.
If these numbers are to be interpreted, INQ7.net has somehow
captured a snapshot of the reading habits of people visiting
the website. And, after three years, INQ7.net -- which
is celebrating its third anniversary on Feb. 27 -- remains
the country’s most visited website.
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