Hitwise today notes that TMZ experienced record traffic - catapulting into the 60th most trafficked website (and struggling to support the overwhelming growth).

But you can also look at Perez Hilton to give perspective on the traffic growth. PerezHilton.com is measured by Quantacst and we can therefore get a public, accurate representation of his traffic. Two million uniques visited PerezHilton.com on June 26th - a huge leap from the previous high of 1.6m. Those 2m visitors delivered 15.3m total page views for the day - which was his third biggest total but short of the April 22nd record of 17.7m.

To put this in perspective, we can compare it to Huffington Post’s traffic for June 26th (also measured by Quantcast). Measured by uniques, HuffingtonPost is a far larger site: 19.5m monthly uniques vs. 13.1m. By pagviews, PerezHilton is far larger: ~300m monthly views vs. ~220m. But Perez dominated by any measurement and, regardless of the ‘winner’, these are huge numbers for nontraditional media sources and proof that ‘breaking’ news is being delivered - and read! - in nontraditional places.

PerezHilton.com: 15.3m pageviews and 2m uniques
HuffingtonPost.com: 9m pageviews and 1.7m uniques

Today’s email says: “Thanks for purchasing iPhone 3GS. Welcome to your iPhone 3GS: We can’t wait to show you around.”

That is very kind of Apple - but it would have been far more useful when I actually bought the iPhone… rather than two weeks later. The well-edited tutorials / videos would have also been useful at that point, but I am afraid that learning how to place calls and using the keyboard are no longer helpful (and if they were - it would be a terrible reflection on me and the phone).

That’s Google’s tagline for their Google Mobile application… but it really should be: “One app. Lots of promotion.” If you have been to any tech blog over the past two weeks, you have certainly seen Google advertising for their mobile app - which is an excellent product. But the frequency with which the ads are running - and their appearance in typically high value rotations (sometimes two or three per page) is, at the very least, revealing of how important Google considers its mobile strategy.

Whether or not Android becomes a (or the) dominant mobile player - Google stands to monetize traffic from iPhones, Blackberries, etc. And it is important to realize that Google’s advertising flurry coincides with their AdSense for Mobile launch… so in effect the ad campaign has two audiences and benefits:

Driving Mobile Adoption
- reach consumers and drive Google Mobile downloads
- which result in more frequent Google search usage on handsets
- which results in better penetration of Mobile Ads… monetized of course by Google

Reach Publishers and Developers
- Prominently targeting tech pubs - repeatedly
- reaching publishers and developers
- who are reminded (repeatedly) of Google’s efforts in Mobile
- and thus encouraged to either integrate or develop alongside

When competing with Google - one of the biggest concerns is always their ability to leverage the network (in a way comparable to most others’ house ads) to drive brand awareness and buy market share.

Yesterday, Apple reminded me to insure my iPhone 3G’s hardware… a couple days after upgrading to an iPhone 3GS.

Today came another bizarre and ineffective email from Apple. This one was titled:
“New Music Tuesday: Radio Disney: iTunes Pass, Daughtry pre-order, new Jay-Z single, and more”

Packaging a season pass of Radio Disney with Jay Z’s latest song is a strange marketing bundle if ever there was one. You would think that the “New Music Tuesday” emails were either based on recent account activity or musical genre…

Your iPhone 3G hardware coverage is about to expire
Don’t say good-bye.
Extend your coverage with the AppleCare Protection Plan.

This email is laughable since I purchased the iPhone 3GS this weekend and used the same email address to pre-order it. And I activated the 3GS through iTunes - effectively replacing iPhone 3G.

I understand that Apple has these emails systematically scheduled; but, you would think they would scrub the recipient list on a weekend when 1,000,000 new iPhones were sold.

Considering I just extended my AT&T contract and upgraded my hardware, I really enjoyed the ironic “don’t say goodbye” tagline.

- capturing an HD broadcast of a live Red Sox game (streamed from MLB.tv, through my computer, and onto the television)
- the video was shot on the iPhone 3GS’s new video capture
- and uploaded to Youtube wirelessly via the iPhone… in less than 30 seconds

On the iPhone and the computer, the video quality is far better than what is displayed on Youtube… but it is still far from HD and, despite TechCrunch’s argument otherwise, products like the Flip Mino HD still have a role within the market (for now).

Also worth noting, the iPhone 3GS’s camera is markedly better than the previous model’s - both in focus, function and output. This photo also does a better job conveying the quality of MLB.tv’s broadcast… a product I am so thoroughly impressed with that I chose to cancel my Comcast MLB Package subscription after five years:

Those users are split evenly between men and women (51% / 49%) and have sweet spot of 35-49 and 18-34 year olds (35% and 30% respectively):

Also worth noting: only 1% of those 100m uniques are on Facebook - meaning our core audience is distributed across a long tail of 100,000s of domains.

Of course, Facebook is a current priority for Widgetbox and we are focused on also growing that audience. Widgetbox has now introduced Facebook Connect - enabling users to share / publish their widgets directly within the Facebook Feed.

Below is an example of a widget published through Facebook Connect (notice the ‘play’ button overlayed atop the widget’s icon):

When clicked, the widget expands and is fully interactive… directly within the Facebook Feed:

Visit any tech blog and you’ll see a swarm of ads for:
- iPhone 3GS-compatible accessories (ie skins and cases)
- iPhone competitors (namely the Palm Pre)
- Phone carriers (Sprint and T-Mobile are trying to capture attention)

My personal favorite:

This is good too… as *everything* comes off as an ad:

Starbucks Coffee Company: About to pass 3 million fans here on Facebook. Wow! We are honored and humbled by this. Question for you all: what more or what else would you like to see us do on this site? By that I mean what type of content, discussion or offers regarding Starbucks would you like to see on this page?

Within two hours of the post, ~7,500 users “liked” the discussion and 3,500 comments. There are several takeaways:

- the ratio of comments to likes is astronomical (1:2)

- the quality if the content is fantastic… Starbucks asked for feedback and got a huge amount of relevant, valuable answers:

I would say since we took the time on FACEBOOK to be your fan then maybe you should offer coupons or a half off day at a local starbucks just for facebook users and fans. And you could use this to let us know about new products and specials. Maybe a discussions about what we like about starbucks and their products and we could learn some things from other people

Janet at 2:23pm June 19
I would say since we took the time on FACEBOOK to be your fan then maybe you should offer coupons or a half off day at a local starbucks just for facebook users and fans. And you could use this to let us know about new products and specials. Maybe a discussions about what we like about starbucks and their products and we could learn some things from other people.

Jim: at 2:23pm June 19
Have Pike Place Blend Decaf brewed all day, not just in the morning. Many of us drink decaf or half-caffs.

Marianne at 2:23pm June 19
Bring back the almond flavoring please.

- Users want coupons and exclusive offers… the theme among the comments is that discounts through Facebook would be welcome. While this is unsurprising, the marketers at Starbucks must be thinking about ways to engage 3m fans via time-sensitive coupons (Dunkin Donuts has done this wonderfully). Furthermore, it’s proof that mobile / social ads can be powerful and welcomed by users.

- Finally, coffee companies get social media! When asked who does social marketing best, I always encourage people to look at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks (in that order) on Facebook and Twitter. Their marketing teams are innovative, responsive and in tune with the web.

More than 40% of users of both devices reported using the Internet on their mobile device more often than using the Web from their computers or listening to the radio.