Newspaper Web sites visitors generated an average of 3.1 billion page views per month during the quarter, compared with just under three billion during the same time last year. The first quarter unique visitor and page view numbers are the highest for any quarter since the NAA started tracking these numbers in 2004 and the largest increase since the third quarter of 2006.

Time spent per person on newspaper Web sites decreased slightly from 45:38 minutes in the first quarter of 2007 to 44:18 for the first quarter of this year.

Compared with the overall Internet audience visitors to newspaper Web sites are 76 percent more likely to have downloaded video or audio in the previous day and are twice as likely to have searched the Internet on their cell phones or other wireless devices. They are also twice as likely to have used iTunes in the past month.

"This research presents more compelling evidence that the powerful demographics newspaper Web sites deliver is unmatched by any other online category," said John F. Sturm, NAA’s president and chief operating officer.

"Advertisers seeking affluent, sophisticated consumers who shop online and immerse themselves in the latest technology need not look any further."

With classifieds becoming a free service, it won’t be long until these types of lead generation pages are on every major news site. Soon after that, they will heavily link to them from their content articles, further blurring the line between content and advertisements. But then again, that is the standard Google is setting by mixing videos in their organic search results, and suggesting people watch related video ads.

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