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June 30, 2009 6:13 AM PDT

Apple tops hardware sites in May traffic

by Lance Whitney

iPhone fever was hot in May, at least based on the number of people who frequented Apple's Web site.

The Mac maker's Apple.com last month hosted 55.7 million unique visitors, more than the site of any other computer hardware manufacturer, according to a report released on Monday by Nielsen Online. The number of visitors was more than double that of second-ranked Hewlett-Packard, which drew in 21.9 million people.

May visitors to Apple's Web site spent an average of an hour and 14 minutes on it, perhaps in anticipation of the pending release of the new iPhone 3GS, Nielsen said.

Traffic to Dell's site came in third place, with 16.8 million unique visits in May. Overall, Web site visits to hardware manufacturers followed by Nielsen grew 22 percent year over year, from 57.3 million in May 2008 to 70.1 million last month.

Buzz about Apple was also in full swing among bloggers in May. Blog mentions of the iPhone 3GS shot up 1,226 percent on June 8, the day the new phone was announced, from the prior week. Blog talk dipped after that but then doubled on June 19, when the 3GS hit the shelves.

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats--journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He's a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.
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by fourthletter June 30, 2009 6:48 AM PDT
The only hardware IBM build is for business use like servers why are they on the list ? or should it have said Lenovo ?
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by randygrenier June 30, 2009 7:26 AM PDT
I wonder how the number of hits on web sites translates into purchases and actual revenue.
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by myles taylor June 30, 2009 8:03 AM PDT
That's a good question since Apple doesn't get money from ads. However, they spent an hour and 14 minutes on the site on average, so I'd guess that at least some of that was shopping and not just random people visiting and then leaving.
by myles taylor June 30, 2009 8:02 AM PDT
That's a lot of visitors. I'm curious to follow this for a few months and see how it goes after the buzz dies down.
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by Sausagebiscuit June 30, 2009 8:22 AM PDT
LOL @ MagicJack
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by Seaspray0 June 30, 2009 1:50 PM PDT
You can count me as one of the magicjack visitors. I got one. $20 for a year and you get local and long distance. It's not perfect but it is economical. Among the detriments... to have phone service, you must have your computer on and be logged in with the magicjack application running (calls go to a voicemail they provide if your computer is off and get delivered to your email). I'd like to be able to run it as a service (meaning I wouldn't have to be logged on) or see a majicjack appliance (which doesn't require the computer at all) in the future. I do have a desktop which I keep running 24 x 7 so this isn't an issue for me, but it could be for others. The call quality is good on a high speed connection. I tried it on a minimum rated high speed connection with good results. I didn't hear an issue with sound but the other end did mention hearing a beeping on occasion. The only other issue I had was with an RDP session but I resolved that by adjusting the settings to leave the sound local in the RDP session.

It does what it advertises. I figured in the cost of electricity to run 24 x 7 on a desktop, $20/yr for the service, and then subtracted roughly $30/month charge for just basic service (not even counting the long distance). The savings are phenominal. Overall, I give it a good rating. If you want to laugh at it, then go ahead. I won't.
by AppleSuxLeo July 1, 2009 8:43 AM PDT
And still has only 2.2% worldwide market share.
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