The Online Publishers Association (OPA) says people spent less time and less money on ecommerce sites in October 2008.

According to the OPA’s Internet Activity Index (IAI), compiled by Nielsen Online, time spent on ecommerce sites dropped from 16.1 percent in January 2008 to 12.8 percent in October.

While people lowered their buying on the Internet in October, they spent more time on content sites. While this was helped by interest in the U.S. election and economic events, the OPA also attributes this to publishers creating more web-based media content.

Overall, the IAI found the following percentage changes in Internet use between January and October 2008:

• Content: 6.1 percent
• Communications: -2.4 percent
• Commerce: -20.4 percent
• Community: 16.0 percent
• Search: 4.0 percent

Source: Enid Burns, “Time Spent Up, Commerce Down Online,” The ClickZ Network, December 4, 2008

According to Adgooroo, U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama is more than five times more popular on the Internet than his rival, John McCain… if web traffic is anything to go by.

Adgooroo’s analysis reveals that more than five times the amount of traffic is being driven each month to websites relating to Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. compared with those relating to John McCain’s campaign.

Meanwhile, the bulk of all this traffic is going to the main Obama and McCain websites. Nearly 93 percent of Obama-related web traffic is going directly to the Obama website, while 73 percent of McCain traffic is going to the main McCain website.

Interestingly, while there are 3.5 times more pro-Obama websites than pro-McCain websites on the Internet, McCain’s ‘grassroots supporter’ sites are receiving 11 percent more traffic than Obama’s grassroots sites.

Adgooroo’s evaluation of Obama’s and McCain’s respective search marketing efforts reveals that both campaigns are fairly equal in the level of sophistication of their paid search programs. The McCain campaign is apparently better at keyword selection, while the Obama campaign seems to be better at targeting topical keywords.

Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, is evidently winning in organic search. While McCain’s website ranks on the first page of Google search results for 67 keywords, Obama ranks on the first page for 117 keywords.

The big question is… what bearing does such Internet activity have on how the American public will vote?

Source: Adgooroo, “Searching for the Next President: the Internet’s impact on McCain vs. Obama”, Press Release