1. Yahoo – 130 million unique visitors
2. Time Warner – 120 million
3. Microsoft – 118 million
4. Google – 110 million

The reason Google will soon top the list? 22% growth from the previous year. Of course, this does not appear to take into account the fact that Google now has YouTube, itself a top ten website, and that Orkut.com is showing surprisingly strong growth lately. According to Alexa, Google now has three top ten sites, besting any other competitor.

These graphs show google.com vs. yahoo, msn.com, live.com and youtube.com, and the second replaces youtube.com with orkut.com:

UPDATE: A VC has some great Comscore numbers and charts. It’s very interesting how different the US and worldwide numbers are. It looks like properties get popular in the US, then, if they last, they eventually get popular worldwide and have huge staying power after that point. As a result, while the US top ten has some recent additions, the international is topped by the big three, followed by a major gap, and then way down, some old guard (Time Warner, Amazon, eBay) and some sites that have just been around a while (Apple, Adobe, Lycos), plus Wikipedia.

Comments

Tag:

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Nathan Weinberg writes the popular InsideGoogle blog, offering the latest news and insights about Google and search engines.

Visit the InsideGoogle blog.

For example, if you want to know if there is a significant relationship between number of physicians per 1000 in a given country and the life expectancy of its citizens, users of Gapminder can plot them against each other and watch the results. A list of countries, represented by circles appear, their populations represented by the size of the circle. Push “play” and visitors can watch Flash animation of the development from 1960 until 2004.

The answer to the physician/life expectancy questions seems to be, “yes, there seems to be a correlation.” Botswana, with 0.4 physicians per 1000 people reports a dismal life expectancy of 35 years. Italy, on the other hand, with 10 times as many physicians, boasts a life expectancy of 80 years.

Categories that can be plotted on the X or Y axis and measured against each other:

1. Carbon dioxide emissions, tons per capita
2. Child mortality per 1000 born
3. Children and old per adult
4. Contraceptive use amongst adult women, %
5. Economic growth, %
6. Income per capita in international dollars
7. Internet users per 1000 people
8. Life expectancy, years
9. Military budget, % of total
10. Number of girls compared to boys in school, %
11. Phone users per 1000 people
12. Physicians per 1000 people
13. Population
14. Urban population
15. Women, % of labor force

Gapminder can also be subscribed to for updated information.

|

Drag this to your Bookmarks.

Add to DiggThis Yahoo My Web

But it’s not until you begin to interpret those statistics as part of a larger picture that you’ll receive the full value of your web analytics software.

A software package can only return so many lines of data. And most of them do a good job at providing the most important ones. But your real insights will be found at the intersection of two, three, or even more of these statistics.

It’s up to you to interpret what you see and turn it into useful information, rather than staring blankly at the numbers and recognizing a trend. When you see a trend you like or don’t like, your natural tendency is to try to emphasize the conditions that caused the positive trends and eliminate the conditions that led to negative trends. But how?

By digging. Let’s say your visits are down. Now, you have to ask yourself why? Perhaps, upon further investigation, you see that the downturn in traffic is primarily coming from a loss of repeat visitors. Dig a little further, and you find out that visitors on dial-up stopped returning a few weeks ago. Now, think about what could have changed over the past few weeks. Did you switch servers? Add any large images or problematic remote javascript code such as Google Analytics?

Now your digging into the statistics has brought you outside the numbers and into the reality of your site and the way you run it. Get into the mind of your typical visitor and see what they see. Dig around for other statistics that may provide a clue as to why you’re getting the results that you are. Chances are, when you stop and think, the answer will come from your own mind, not one of a hundred pretty charts or bar graphs on your web analytics software.

Add to | Digg | Yahoo! My Web

Technorati:

Visit Web Analytics Guide
http://www.analyticsguide.com for more valuable insights,
articles and FAQ on web site statistics and analysis.

A couple of weeks back, GregO coined the term “Going Bedouin” that got a bit of buzz going with Om Malik and Jackson West, Stowe Boyd, Kevin Burton, the Guardian UK and others around how the current (and future?) crop of technology companies were self-organizing and getting things done with a minimum of infrastructure investment.

Now he’s taken aim at IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Sun and the OMG, through the lens of Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, equating the the aforementioned companies with the Powers that ran the systems of Europe in the late 17th century.

(On the subject of Stephenson, just remembered these graphs from Cryptonomicon. Heh.)

GregO:

“Though I often griped, I learned to live within the structure provided by the ordained Powers. We made our treks to JavaOne, the Microsoft PDC, and other events to receive the word as written. We lived with a pace of new technology arrival dictated by the Powers and their committees of architects. We were sometimes forced to swear allegiance to one of the Powers and to purchase the requisite tools and literature from that Power in order to use their infrastructure. For the most part, we were well-paid, latte-drinking vassals.

Somewhere over the last five years or so something changed. Though I can’t think of a specific event to parallel to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it is clear that some form of revolution did occur, and that a New System of the Software World is in the process of being established. The powers of the Old System are still around, but they no longer dictate what infrastructure and tool options are available to software developers. Today, new capabilities come into being because there is a demand and because there is someone willing to meet that demand – most often through the vehicle of an open source project, or through an Internet-based service.”

In the new software world, who is providing the illumination and Enlightenment? Salesforce’s AppExchange, Intuit’s QuickBase, JotSpot, Ning, Thingamy…

Good stuff. Read the whole thing.

(disclosure: versai is a customer of cerado)

Add to | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web

Technorati:

Christopher Carfi, CEO and co-founder of Cerado, looks at sales, marketing, and the business experience from the customers point of view. He currently is focused on understanding how emerging social technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking are enabling the creation of new types of customer-driven communities. He is the author of the Social Customer Manifesto weblog, and has been occasionally told that he drives and snowboards just a little too quickly.

Charter Street is penned by industry vets Paul McNamara and Greg Olsen, with whom I’ve been fortunate enough to work closely over the last few months. Paul and Greg are jumping into the business blogosphere with both feet, and will be chronicling their new company through its birth, growth and eventual world domination*.

I’m not yet able to publicly say what Versai is going to be doing, but I can tell you it’s very, very cool and very much in line with our belief of where the technology industry is going.

Their first two posts are up as of last weekend, with Paul bringing us up to speed on what he’s been doing since leaving Red Hat in 2001 (hint: it’s a lot), and Greg laying the groundwork of his vision and explaining why “going bedouin” is the right choice for a startup in 2006.

The money ‘graphs from Paul:

As Mark Twain once said, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. As some of you know, I left Red Hat in 2001 to join Hal Covert (another Red Hat alum) at SGI. 2001 was a year that saw lots of the early guys at Red Hat leave.

My advice to anyone trying to affect a major turn-around of a public company is simple: don’t. Take it private first.

…and some insight from the good Dr. Olsen:

Given peoples’ experience with telecommuting and distributed team projects from the open source community, a neo-Bedouin approach is not as hard to envision as it once may have been. The requirements for a neo-Bedouin business, however, go further and must include support for all business functions (such as sales, marketing, finance, engineering and customer support). A neo-Bedouin approach can be executed through a wide variety of specific choices. Here is a sample recipe:

Subscribed!

* – Of course, the phase after “world domination” is typically an embarrasing VH-1 retrospective sometime in mid-2025, but hey, that’s the price for success.

Christopher Carfi, CEO and co-founder of Cerado, looks at sales, marketing, and the business experience from the customers point of view. He currently is focused on understanding how emerging social technologies such as blogs, wikis, and social networking are enabling the creation of new types of customer-driven communities. He is the author of the Social Customer Manifesto weblog, and has been occasionally told that he drives and snowboards just a little too quickly.

However with the tools available today it is possible for almost anyone to add graphs and charts to web pages. With just a little bit of HTML, dynamically enerated graphs and charts can be added to web pages and/or applications.

Why use Graphs and Charts

The web is about making information available. Today’s users tend to be in a hurry and require that information is presented to them clearly and quickly. If your web site has a message to convey, which is currently being presented as a table of figures, then it is highly likely that you will benefit from using graphing and charting functionality. With a table of figures most people find it hard to see the meaning immediately, however if those figures are presented as a picture (i.e. a graph) then almost all will instantly get the point. What’s more presenting your information graphically is both colorful and adds a touch of professionalism. People tend to have more confidence in information when it is presented in both a pleasing, clear and professional manner.

The Easy way to create a graph

There are now many graphing and charting packages on the market which make it very quick and easy for you to build in professional quality graph images. The time saved in using an ‘out of the box’ solution is so great that even the most seasoned professionals are using these packages. In addition most graphing packages are very reasonably priced. Before choosing a package there are a couple of things to consider. For instance do you simply want to present the graph image to your visitor or would you like some level of interaction. e.g. making certain areas of the graph clickable or pop-up data displays when the mouse passes over certain area’s. Another consideration is the source of your data. Is it held in a database, file or somewhere else. Ideally you would want a graphing package that is capable of fetching the data directly from the source itself.

Which Graphing packages are available

At the time of writing there are many graphing solutions on the market which fall into the following technology categories:-

- Java Applet Graphing Solutions

This type of software, in addition to the standard graphical capabilities, also provides interactive features like clickable link area’s and mouse-over popup displays. These solutions can be installed on any web server without any server side configuration or set-up.

- Java Servlet Graphing Solutions

These solutions are powerful server side functionality. Although probably not for the beginner they are very beneficial to the ‘web application’ developer.

- Flash Graphing Solutions

The Flash environment provides some very sophisticated graphics capabilities which has lead to some of the best looking graphing solutions. Unfortunately the technology can only work when the user has flash installed on their browser. Although becoming more widespread there is still a very large proportion of browsers which cannot view flash content.

- PHP Graphing Solutions

These are probably the easiest solutions to use and implement. With these solutions it’s possible for a complete novice to add graphing functionality to their web page and applications. But make no mistake they are also very powerful offering very good graphic results. Most web servers today can run this software without any further configuration.

- ASP.NET Graphing Solutions

Again these solutions offer some very good graphical results. At the time of writing the number of web servers capable of running these packages is far less than those of other categories.

Creating a Graph

With the right software package the process of adding a graph to web page involves little more than the following:-

1) Inserting a small piece of HTML into your web page. (usually the code is provided and all you have to do is ‘copy and paste’)

2) Setting some values in a configuration file (e.g.. setting things like graph colors and titles etc.)

3) Setting some values telling the graph where to acquire the data from

Although this is fairly straight forward sometimes a problem may be encountered. A big advantage of using a good professional package is that help is at hand. If you get stuck at any stage then simply ask for help from the software provider, a good one will always be happy to help. Contrary to popular belief good software companies answer requests for technical help in both a timely and helpful manner.

Patrick OBrien is the founder and creator of Jpowered.com, a site providing powerful software solutions to web designers. http://www.jpowered.com

PHP Graphs http://www.jpowered.com/php-scripts/adv-graph-chart/index.htm

Java Graphs http://www.jpowered.com/graph_chart_collection/index.htm

The good news is, young Jedi Masters, that the Force was sought after in much greater abundance than the Dark Side. Even if Luke is a sniveling little wussy, at least Yoda knows how to kick some tail.

A year after Nipplegate, [Janet Jackson] was still the number one searched for news term on Google, outscoring [Hurricane Katrina] and [tsunami].

Here’s the rest of the list of “news” searches:

4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter

Variants of Apple’s iPod controlled 4 of the top 10 of Froogle searches, with the other stuff kids want for Christmas, like [digital camera], [psp], and [xbox] peppered throughout.

MySpace.com squealed into first place of the Top Gainers category followed by Ares (I’m guessing the file sharing application, not the Greek god of war).

There’s plenty of other graphic renditions of the collective search mind on there, from the London bombings to the CIA leak, from the bird flu to Britney Spears, all in squiggly-lined glory

Here is the methodology I used to answer this question. I gathered the results of the queries naturally performed last month by myself and three associates using Yahoo and Google. I then fetched the pages and divided the body section into three equal parts for each page. I tallied the results for the first 8 rankings on both Yahoo and Google (keeping the results separate) and then converted them into a percentage of the total results for each search engine.

Here are the graphs showing Google and Yahoo results:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfg02.gif

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com/graphs/dfy02.gif

The X-axis shows the ranking (from #1 through #8) of the search engine results in the study. The Y-axis shows the percentage of domains that contained the keyword in the top (red line), middle (blue line) and bottom (purple line) thirds of the body section of the page.

It is interesting to note that pages containing the keyword in the top and bottom third of the body section ranked much better on Google. The top section had a normalized correlation of +42 on a scale of -100 to +100. The bottom third also showed a remarkable positive correlation of +46 on the same scale. Having the keyword in the middle third had no significant effect (no correlation whatsoever… neither positive nor negative).

The Yahoo results were even more interesting. I generally ignore any correlations between -35 and +35 as being generally insignificant. On Yahoo, none of the three sections showed any remarkable correlations. The scores were a +17 for the top, -3 for the middle and -17 for the bottom third of the body section. Does this mean that Yahoo doesn’t even look for the keyword in the body section?

Advice: Mention your keywords near the top and/or bottom of a page for Google ranking.

For more information and access to other
SearchEngineGeek.com reports, please visit:

http://www.SearchEngineGeek.com

To make a great chart, you need to create a clear, compelling picture of the data that will call your customers to action. Your chart’s message must be easy for them to understand without having to study it. Three of the most easily understood chart types are:

1) Bar charts

Bar charts are an excellent method of comparing groups of data. Each data group can consist of a single bar for simple comparisons, or multiple bars breaking information down into subcategories for more in-depth analysis.

Bar charts are easy to interpret because most people are already familiar with seeing data in this format. You can use bar charts to emphasize the data represented by the tallest bar, the shortest bar, the overall trend of the bars, or a change in the bars caused by a certain variable.

2) Pie charts

Pie charts are useful for showing percentages of a greater whole. In a pie chart, the entire pie represents the total data, and each “slice” represents data from a particular group within the whole.

A pie chart is straightforward and easy to understand. It provides a clear visualization of the data class that represents the largest percentage of the whole (represented by the largest piece of the pie), and the relative value of each of the other data classes.

3) Line graphs (also called run charts)

Line graphs show or compare trends, cycles, increases and decreases over time. Typically a line graph shows events on the y-axis affected by time on the x-axis. Often a line representing an average of the data charted is included as a reference point. Or multiple lines may be charted on a line graph, with each representing a different product or variable.

Tips for a Successful Chart

Be sure your chart compares your data on an equal basis. Use the same scale for all data categories in one chart (for example, comparing data measured in dollars with data measured in hundreds of dollars isn’t equal). And use a consistent interval between your data categories (measuring one-week intervals against 5-week intervals isn’t an accurate comparison).

Use charts to communicate the significance of your statistics. Some of the statistics you may want to highlight in your chart are:

Once you’ve chosen the best type of chart for the data you want to show your customers, remember to keep your graphic as simple as possible. Trade show customers are assaulted by thousands of images. Don’t compare too many things, or include too many categories of data. Your goal is to educate your customers, not confuse them.

And resist the temptation to add fancy extras like pictures and 3-D effects if they make the chart look busy. If a chart is too detailed or cluttered, customers won’t invest the effort required to figure it out. They’ll bypass it as a technical output of mumbo-jumbo, and move on to something that clearly and compellingly calls them to take a closer look at a product.

Rena Klingenberg shares trade show success secrets in her website, href="http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com" target="_blank">Trade Show
Booth Display Tips, where you can find further tips on href="http://www.trade-show-booth-display.com/portable-trade-show-display.html" target="_blank">portable trade show displays.

Bar graphs are those nifty little illustrations with a series of different length rectangles, or ‘bars,’ that vary in length in the same proportion as the numbers they represent. So a bar representing 50 will be exactly half as long as a bar that represents 100.

More complex data can be presented in two dimensions — that is the width of the bar can be significant as well as its length. Also, you can color-code the bars to represent yet a third dimension, or just to make it easier to label values with a key to the color codes.

There are complex (and expensive) programs available that will graph data in various types of graphs and charts, including our simple bar graphs, but sometimes that kind of power is just over-kill.

Why not use the wonderful powers of web browsers to manipulate graphics, to help you build your graph? It is easier, faster and more flexible. Best of all, the resulting graphic won’t take up a lot of bandwidth. Even a large graph will load super fast!

Here is the key to the whole process: web browsers will scale graphics to any size you specify.

That seems simple enough, but most web designers fail to use the full power of this feature. For your graph, make an image just ONE PIXEL in size, for each color you want to use. Most any graphics program should let you do that.

Save your image as a JPEG and it should be less than 700 bytes in size. If you get a file that is about 5K then you need to check your ‘save’ settings in the graphic program, you are saving non-graphic information such as creator, version, etc. That isn’t needed for this work of fine art. Or, if your graphic program supports the GIF format you can save your one-pixel image as a GIF and it will be only 35 bytes in size!

Create one image for each color you want to use in your bar graph. Then simply let the browser expand your one pixel image to the size of bar you need. You can use paragraph tags, tables or other HTML elements to align and label the bars on your graph. For our example, lets say all the bars will be green and you made a file called ‘green.jpg’ and stored it in the same directory with the HTML file.

Say you want to compare sales of widgets and gadgets. You sold 13,458 widgets and 9,582 gadgets. Supposing you want your graph to fit in a space 500 pixels wide. Divide the larger number by that 500 and round upward to get a display ratio of 27 — that is to say each pixel will represent 27 widgets or gadgets. Then divide each number by 27 to get the length setting for your bar. Add labels and you get code something like:

Gadgets
Widgets

The ‘height’ value determines the width of the bar, you can adjust it to whatever looks best. If you would rather have a vertical bar graph, just swap the ‘height’ and ‘width’ values and use a table format to ensure your captions line up properly.

Give your viewers a graphic view of the data without wasting precious bandwidth, and save time in the process!

Andy Morris does lots of stuff, including collecting good ideas
like this. Visit one of his websites at

http://www.epmassoc.com/

and learn all about eBooks!