UK searchers 'captivated by US election'

4th March 2008

Internet users from Britain are more interested in US politicians than British ones, according to new figures.

Hitwise statistics reveal that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has received an average of five times as many searches as Gordon Brown - while he also maintains a search lead on rival Hillary Clinton with three times as many searches as his party rival.

Rich media is also a field in which Senator Obama is asserting his presence, according to the web traffic monitoring service.

"Senator Obama has a special page within YouTube for promotional videos and clips from the debates," the company's Robin Goad notes on his blog.

The top two sites visited after searches for US presidential candidates are their respective Wikipedia pages and Google News UK, the firm observes.

The will.i.am adaptation of Yes We Can has been viewed some 11 million times on user-generated video site YouTube.