MSNBC.com Crows Over New Nielsen Numbers

By DT Staff Published October 25, 2009

MSNBC.com tooted their horn today as they showed off figures from June Nielsen/NetRaings numbers. This data shows the online news site to be leading the category of Current Events & Global News websites, especially in the area of online video news.

The numbers, according to MSNBC.com, put the site at 23.7 million unique visitors last month, followed by CNN at 21.3 and ABC at 7.6. MSNBC highlighted that during the recent London terrorist bombings, 4.4 million videos of NBC coverage were watched throughout the day.

Recommended Videos

MSNBC.com also said they would begin making available direct links to video stories through the MSN Messenger service. The links will appear in the main window of the messaging application.

“Online video is becoming more and more mainstream,” said Charlie Tillinghast, General Manager and Publisher of MSNBC.com. “One out of every five visits to MSNBC.com includes a video play and we’re reaching audiences that traditional broadcasters are struggling to reach. The enormous number of MSN Messenger users will extend this reach and further solidify NBC News as the leader in video news, regardless of the platform.”

Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Virgin Galactic is charging $750,000 for three minutes of weightlessness, and nearly 700 people are already in the queue

Three minutes of floating, one very expensive ticket.

Virgin Galactic featured image

I’ll be honest with you. Three minutes of weightlessness for the price of a very nice house sounds absurd to me. Even so, hundreds of people have already lined up to experience it.

Most recently, Virgin Galactic unveiled Apeiron, the first spaceplane in its new Delta class. The company flew it from its Arizona factory to Spaceport America in New Mexico, where it will begin flight testing.

Emerging Tech

Google is making Gemini and Search work better with the apps you love

Gemini's guest list is growing, and your favorite apps are invited.

Gemini AI on a phone.

Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.

The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.

Emerging Tech

AI bots are now trying to sabotage public health policies, like banning disposable vapes

Thousands of AI bots voted in a public health poll to block sales restriction on disposable vapes. It's like Big Tobacco is back from the dead.

Woman smoking a vape.

In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.

Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.