Euro 2000 drives men offline

Euro 2000 contributed to a fall in the number of men surfing the internet from home in the UK in June, while the number of women surfers increased.

Research by NetValue published today shows that the number of male adult surfers fell from 6.1 million in May to 5.75 million in June. NetValue, which logs the activity of 1600 UK home internet users, attributes the fall to the popularity of the Euro 2000 football tournament.

Female traffic to the top ecommerce websites increased significantly in June. Still the UK's most popular website was books, music and games site Streetsonline.co.uk, which saw female visitors increase from 658,350 to 823,820 - nearly one in five of all UK female surfers.

Second place Amazon.co.uk, also a seller of books and music, had 514,720 female surfers in June, up from 282,150. Travel, gifts and leisure retailer Lastminute.com became the third most popular site (seventh in May) with more than double the number 154,242 visitors to 334,670. All three sites received fewer visitors from male surfers than in May.

NetValue's statistics are generated from panels of surfers who are paid a nominal sum to have software installed in their home-based computers. About 70 per cent of all surfing is done from home. The findings are then compared with a rolling survey conducted monthly by Taylor Nelson Sofres, one of the leading companies involved in the calculation of TV audience figures.

UK surfers' top 10 websites, as compiled by NetValue