Hillary Clinton Supporters Turn to Obama Online

Hillary Clinton Supporters Turn to Obama Online

via Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - US de Heather Hopkins em 10/06/08

Saturday, Hillary Clinton conceded the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. There has been much talk in recent weeks of a party deeply divided and threats by Clinton supporters that they would support McCain. Clinton eloquently urged voters to support Obama in her speech on Saturday and clickstream data indicates greater interest in Obama than McCain among HillaryClinton.com US visitors.

Last week, the #7 website visited after HillaryClinton.com was BarackObama.com. JohnMcCain.com came in at #17.

Last week's exit spurred visits to Hillary Clinton's website to soar to the highest level since the primaries began. Visits to HillaryClinton.com were up 170% week on week to rank #3 among Politics websites (after The Huffington Post and The Politico).

Political junkies stay tuned for more on the campaign in the coming weeks...

Internet Behavior Signals Election Fatigue

Internet Behavior Signals Election Fatigue

via Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - US de Heather Hopkins em 09/04/08

Perhaps having recognized the trend, I should have steered clear of the subject, but I couldn't resist. Internet usage data suggests that American's are suffering election and politics fatigue. Surprised? Probably not. A quote published in this week's Economist (subscription required): "To be honest, I haven't been following [the Democratic campaign] any more. I lost my interest." Quoting 50 Cent (the rapper) who originally supported Hillary Clinton, switched to Barack Obama and now he's not sure.

Here's a chart of the weekly share of US Internet searches for "barack obama" and "hillary clinton":

Internet searches for the Democratic candidates' names have dropped to the lowest point since the week ending December 29th for "barack obama" and the week ending January 5th for "hillary clinton". (The Iowa caucus took place on January 3rd). It's not just the Dems that are losing momentum - visits to the Politics category overall follow the same pattern as do searches for "john mccain".

If you count the Iowa caucus as the starting point, it would appear that interest grew from that point to just past Super Tuesday.

Perhaps it's not just to protracted race but the constant coverage in the media that is causing election fatigue. With the constant tit for tat on the news, who needs to search for either candidate? In any case, this is a great example of how search data can be a good indicator of the desire for more information about a person, product or service.