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Obama inauguration traffic not good for everyone

Sure, some sites were way up. But people stopped buying.

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Rafe Needleman

While dozens of social and media Web sites saw high or record traffic on President Obama's Inauguration Day, not all Web sites shared the wealth. At least one commercial online hosting service saw its customers take a beating during the ceremony. MerchantCircle (review), which hosts small business Web sites, saw a dramatic drop in traffic to its sites. Once the meat of the inauguration started to wind down, though, it looks like people went back to their usual browsing and buying behaviors.

Traffic to MerchantCircle sites spiked downward during the inauguration ceremony. MerchantCircle