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HITWISE UK ENTERTAINMENT UPDATE

Sudoku puzzles Internet users as Japanese word craze sweeps UK

London, 23^rd May 2005

Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service, today reports that Japanese puzzle craze Sudoku is sweeping the online world as it continues to gain fans in the UK.

Billed as the most addictive puzzle since the 1980s Rubik’s Cube phenomenon, the latest import from Japan was first introduced to a UK audience by The Times, which has been running a series of Sudoku puzzles since late last year. However, it is only in recent weeks that the phenomenon has really taken off, with the puzzle gaining mainstream appeal after The Sun launched its own version (called the ‘Sun doku’) on May 10^th. The puzzle has also recently become available to download to mobile phones, as well as appearing in almost all of the national newspapers, including The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Mail.

Chart of searches for ‘sudoku’ and ‘su doku’, week ending January 1^st – week ending May 21^st.

Hitwise Search Terms data reveals that although searches for ‘sudoku’ increased significantly in early March, they saw by far their biggest spike in the week that the Sun began publishing the puzzles. Searches for ‘sudoku’ doubled between May 7^th and May 14^th, and also increased significantly in the week ending May 21^st. ‘Sudoko’ is now the 10^th most searched-for term within the Entertainment – Games industry and makes up 0.18% of all online searches.

Searches for the less popular spelling variation ‘su doku’ - favoured by The Times - also more than doubled from April 30^th to May 7^th. The top downstream destination for ‘su doku’ searches is The Times website (www.timesonline.co.uk), followed closely by several other news sites, including BBC News and The Independent. Meanwhile, ‘times su doku’ is one of the top 10 variations on the search term ‘su doku’, highlighting the newspaper’s success in aligning its brand with the popular puzzle.

Top 10 variations on ‘sudoku’, based on data for the four weeks ending May 21^st.

Top 10 Search Terms for Entertainment – Games

Based on data for four weeks ending May 21^st

Rank	Search Term	Share
1	games	1.71%
2	runescape	1.46%
3	ps2 cheats	0.74%
4	cheats	0.68%
5	miniclip	0.68%
6	neopets	0.64%
7	free games	0.60%
8	yahoo games	0.50%
9	mousebreaker	0.40%
10	sudoku	0.39%

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world’s leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.co.uk

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619