The leader in web researches, comScore, Inc. on Wednesday (April 22, 2009) released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2009 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service.

According to the comScore study, Americans turned to the Web to plan spring and summer travel, and to manage their personal finances during the economic downturn. The month also saw the recent obsession with “tweeting” gain steam, as Twitter.com more than doubled its visitor base, ranking as the top-gaining property for the month.

Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix, said, “Twitter has certainly become an Internet phenomenon over the past few months, but March represented an especially big gain for the site as it added more than 5 million visitors versus the previous month. With numerous celebrities and media personalities – including Oprah – recently jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, the site shows no signs of slowing.”

The comScore study states that after several preceding months of strong double-digit growth, traffic to Twitter.com accelerated in March, growing 131 percent to 9.3 million visitors. Fueled in part by celebrity “tweeters” and substantial mainstream media attention, the site ranked as the top-gaining property for the month. For additional analysis of Twitter’s growth in March, please visit the comScore Voices blog: http://www.comscore.com/blog/2009/04/breaking_news_and_making_news.html

According to the comScore study, many Americans sought financial advice online to help navigate the turbulent economy, resulting in a 12-percent gain at the Financial Information/Advice category.  Consumer concerns about the status of their credit rating drove traffic to FreeCreditReport.com, which grew 6 percent to 6.6 million visitors and ranked as the most visited site in the category. Bankrate.com Sites, which provides rate information on various financial products such as mortgages, credit cards and money market accounts, reported a 12-percent increase to 3.9 million visitors.

The comScore study articulates that as Americans prepared for spring travel and planned for summer vacations, several travel categories witnessed gains. Travel – Transactions led as the top-gaining category for the month, growing 18 percent to 4.5 million visitors. The Car Rental and Airlines categories also saw double-digit gains, each growing 11 percent to 5.6 million and 29.8 million visitors, respectively. Southwest Airlines Co. led the Airlines category with 11.3 million visitors, up 20 percent from the previous month, followed by Delta Airlines with 6.5 million visitors (up 5 percent) and American Airlines with 5.8 million visitors (up 25 percent).

According to the comScore study, Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in March with more than 151 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 146 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 122.3 million visitors. Facebook.com moved up one spot in the ranking to #9 this month with 61.2 million visitors.

According to the comScore study, Platform-A led the March Ad Focus ranking, reaching 90 percent of the 192 million Americans online. Yahoo! Network ranked second, reaching 86 percent, while Google Ad Network moved up one spot to #3 with an 84-percent reach.