Deaths of Muammar Gaddafi and Steve Jobs boost web traffic at all national newspaper sites except Independent.co.uk
Mail Online, guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk all posted new internet traffic records in October, another busy news month with major stories including the deaths of Muammar Gaddafi and Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Mirror Group Digital also enjoyed strong traffic growth in October, with Independent.co.uk the only one of the five national newspaper publishers that report monthly ABC internet audience figures to see a month-on-month decline in daily unique browsers. The launch of Apple's iPhone 4S also helped boost newspaper website traffic in October.
Mail Online, the UK's most popular newspaper website for the 13th month running, grew monthly users by 16.85% to 78,994,874. Daily traffic increased by 12.3% to 4,563,492.
Mail Online has increased the number of users coming to its site by 57.83% compared to October last year.
Guardian.co.uk, the Guardian News & Media website network that includes MediaGuardian.co.uk, increased daily browsers by 12.23% compared to September to 3,275,624 – a new record traffic high. On a year-on-year basis the number of daily browsers has grown 57%.
The GNM website network publishes figures on total monthly users every other month. However, according to unofficial figures guardian.co.uk is understood to have topped 60 million monthly uniques for the first time.
Telegraph.co.uk increased monthly users by 19.31% compared to September to 45,310,524 in October. Daily browsers climbed 14.94% month on month to 2,292,052.
Independent.co.uk saw a 7% month-on-month dip in its daily users in October.
Independent.co.uk – which unveiled a major overhaul of its web strategy late last month, including a "freemium" access model for international users – reported a 5.46% month-on-month fall to 13,874,442 users in October.
Daily unique browsers dropped by 7.08% to 611,488 last month, according to the latest officially audited ABC web circulation figures published on Thursday.
However, the Independent website posted a 11.45% gain in unique browsers in October compared to the same month last year.
The Mirror Group Digital network of websites, which includes mirror.co.uk and 3am.co.uk, showed the largest growth in monthly browsers among national newspapers that report ABC web figures, up 25.53% compared to September to 15,796,147. Daily browsers grew by 17.22% month-on-month to 710,695.
Mirror Group Digital had 35.23% more monthly users in October than compared with the same month in 2010.
Mail OnlineDaily average browsers: 4,563,492
Month-on-month change: +12.31%
Year-on-year change: +65.41%
Monthly browsers: 78,994,874
Month-on-month: +16.85%
guardian.co.ukDaily average browsers: 3,275,624
Month-on-month change: +12.23%%
Year-on-year change: +57.43%
Monthly browsers: N/A
Telegraph.co.ukDaily average browsers: 2,292,052
Month-on-month change: +14.94%
Year-on-year change: +33.07%
Monthly browsers: 45,310,524
Month-on-month change: +19.31%
Mirror Group DigitalDaily average browsers: 710,695
Month-on-month change: +17.22%
Year-on-year change: +34.06%
Monthly browsers: 15,796,147
Month-on-month change: +25.53%
Independent.co.ukDaily average browsers: 611,488
Month-on-month change: -7.08%
Year-on-year change: +10%
Monthly browsers: 13,874,442
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United by turkey – and Twitter | An Xiao Mina
Written on November 24, 2011 at 2:30 pm, by An Xiao Mina
Elsewhere in the world, traditional fare can be hard to find. But Americans will gather, online and offline, at least to talk turkey
You won't believe how difficult it is to find turkey abroad. I've seen almost any kind of animal available for consumption here in Asia. Live octopus. Bony snake. Wiggling scorpions, fresh donkey meat and spitting clam. But little old turkey? No way. How about turkey sandwich? Don't even bother.
It's my first Thanksgiving outside the US, and my American friends and I are panicking online. By this time of year, back home, the big, juicy birds have all rolled out, complete with special deals and packages. But it's slim pickings abroad.
I could sympathise when my friend Sara Watson tweeted about not being able to find turkey in Chongqing, deep in the heart of China. For the city's 30 million people, the fourth Thursday of November is just another Thursday. What's worse, even when she did locate a turkey, she had to cook it in a crockpot, as Chinese homes rarely come with ovens.
I, too, struggled as I poked around Manila in search of turkey. Thanksgiving never caught on in this former colony, and most of the birds I could find were imported and therefore way too expensive. So I opted instead for ground turkey, to be sculpted into meatloaf.
What's the deal with turkey, anyway? Even staunch vegetarians will make the effort to cook "Tofurkey". Having shared Thanksgiving meals with families from many different backgrounds, I've learned that everything else about Thanksgiving is negotiable. If we can't find potatoes to mash, we'll find rice to steam. If we can't locate celery sticks, we'll happily swap in chick peas or bok choy.
For me, turkey represents Thanksgiving more than anything because it can't be had alone. It makes a community come together. Like the first pilgrims, we hunt them out, only this time in expat-friendly grocery stores. We collectively strategise on the best cooking methods with the tools at hand. We can't possibly finish one bird by ourselves, so we invite our neighbors to join in the feast. And then, we all pass out a few hours later, at last able to rest easy in a foreign land.
Unlike the pilgrims, we at least have the internet. We gather around our digital tables, in faraway cities like Chongqing and Manila, where we'll be tweeting, Facebooking and Instagramming our makeshift turkey meals. Twelve hours later, when supper time rolls around in your time zone, we'll be waiting for your pictures, too.
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