I'm not a Maria fan but I found this while doing some reading today. Quite impressive for her to contribute to this and shows how mainstream she is/has become. Congrats to her and her fans.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002157520
Mike Shields
MARCH 13, 2006 -
Barry Bonds and Maria Sharapova have both been very good to Sports Illustrated’s SI.com. The March 7 posting of an excerpt from a book that provides inflammatory details on Bonds’ alleged steroid use drove 19 million page views, a 55 percent increase over a typical Tuesday. The site also drew twice as many unique users (2.2 million) that day versus an average Tuesday—figures approaching a record for SI.com.
However, this past February saw the site set numerous traffic records, driven by the Feb. 14 launch of its Swimsuit edition content. The first two days of Swimsuit coverage saw traffic exceed 30 million page views per day, easily breaking records, according to SI.com managing editor Paul Fichtenbaum. "Traditionally our best days in terms of traffic are the first few days of the NCAA tournament," he said.
While the early days of March Madness typically general 20 million daily page views for the site, the Swimsuit traffic "blew that away," he said.
Si.com featured triple the amount of Swimsuit photos versus the previous year, including several of the tennis starlet Maria Sharapova along with a body-painted Heidi Klum. That content, combined with the site’s Olympic coverage resulted in a record 440 million page views for the site during February, up from 240 million page views in February 2005. In fact, Fichtenbaum said that traffic guarantees for advertisers which had purchased six week sponsorships in the site's Swimsuit section were met within two weeks.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002157520
Mike Shields
MARCH 13, 2006 -
Barry Bonds and Maria Sharapova have both been very good to Sports Illustrated’s SI.com. The March 7 posting of an excerpt from a book that provides inflammatory details on Bonds’ alleged steroid use drove 19 million page views, a 55 percent increase over a typical Tuesday. The site also drew twice as many unique users (2.2 million) that day versus an average Tuesday—figures approaching a record for SI.com.
However, this past February saw the site set numerous traffic records, driven by the Feb. 14 launch of its Swimsuit edition content. The first two days of Swimsuit coverage saw traffic exceed 30 million page views per day, easily breaking records, according to SI.com managing editor Paul Fichtenbaum. "Traditionally our best days in terms of traffic are the first few days of the NCAA tournament," he said.
While the early days of March Madness typically general 20 million daily page views for the site, the Swimsuit traffic "blew that away," he said.
Si.com featured triple the amount of Swimsuit photos versus the previous year, including several of the tennis starlet Maria Sharapova along with a body-painted Heidi Klum. That content, combined with the site’s Olympic coverage resulted in a record 440 million page views for the site during February, up from 240 million page views in February 2005. In fact, Fichtenbaum said that traffic guarantees for advertisers which had purchased six week sponsorships in the site's Swimsuit section were met within two weeks.
