Do you know where Americans are going online?

I certainly thought I did until I recently visited http://www.alexa.com/ and checked out the top sites visited by country.

I assumed with fantasy football season approaching and Americans’ incessant curiosity of all things celebrity that yahoo.com and tmz.com would be first and second on the list respectively, but to my amazement, they were not. Out of the top 100 sites visited by Americans, Yahoo ranked second, but TMZ wasn’t even listed. So back to the drawing board I go.

I then put on my public relations (pr) hat and took another stab at some of America’s most visited sites. Since all good pr practitioners need to know what’s going on in the world and in their industry, I figured that Americans might be visiting CNN and The Wall Street Journal. They had to be in the top 100…not so much. Again, one ranked seventeenth and one didn’t even rank at all. Can you guess which one made the top 100? That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. It was CNN at seventeen. Who knew? Obviously not me.

For my last trick, I thought I might try taking off my pr hat and putting on my new media hat. I have a good feeling about this one [wink, wink]. I just have to get it right this time. So knowing how much Americans love their online social networking, I’ll pick Facebook and Twitter.

Can she do it, ladies and gentlemen? Can she pick two sites of the top 100 sites visited by Americans according to alexa.com? The answer is… [dramatic pause]…wait for it… [another dramatic pause even longer than the last one]…wait for it… [one last dramatic pause just for effect]…yes, she can!

Facebook is number three and Twitter is number fourteen. I knew I had it in me. Thanks for avoiding any interpersonal, face-to-face communication, America. I couldn’t have done it without you.

All the best,

dp

Stayed tuned for more reports on my student adventures in public relations and new media.