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Motivation
With such a comprehensive collection of articles, there are few
topics for which Wikipedia has no information. In response, search
engines are increasingly featuring Wikipedia in their search results.
This is causing people to surf onto Wikipedia not only for informational
purposes, but also entertainment and news. This unique effect allows
Wikipedia to be used like the internet's "pulse." By examining
Wikipedia's most visited articles, one can see what topics the internet
population is interested in.
Description
The visualization displays ten months of visit frequency data for
Wikipedia's most popular articles; August 2006 to May 2007. For
each month, the top 50 most visited articles are shown. These are
sorted in descending order and stacked on top of each other. The
height of a cell and the font size of article titles are proportional
to the number of visits an article received. Thus, the height of
an entire month (a column of cells) represents the total number
of average daily visitors to the top 50 articles in that period.
A color-coding scheme is applied to every article to denote its
behavior in the top 50 list - see key for details. This allows the
viewer to quickly see the quantity and distribution of different
behaviors. The first and last months have no color coding because
their status cannot be determined. If the article exists in adjacent
months, a subtle gray line is rendered to connect them. This allows
viewers to see the overall motion of articles in the top 50.
The data was downloaded from WikiCharts,
a free service run by Leon Weber that provides visit statistics
for Wikipedia's most popular pages.
Example Points of Interest
- Steve Irwin was the most visited article in September 2006,
almost certainly caused by a wave of public interest following
his death on the 4th of that month. However, he quickly dropped
out of the top 50 (note the orange colorization).
- The March 2007 debut of the quasi-historical film 300 caused
millions of web surfers to read up on topics like the Battle of
Thermopylae (1st spot), Sparta (5th), and Xerxes 1 of Persia (26th).
- At least one Pokeman related article placed in the top 50 every
month during this period.
- It appears people searching for pornography are stumbling onto
Wikipedia in large numbers, pushing many sex-related articles
into the top 50. I have a feeling, however, that people arriving
at these pages don't stay and read.
- Saddam Hussein jumps into the top 50 for a single month following
his execution (see January, 2007).
- The top 10 or so articles are generally the most stable, often
lasting in the top 50 for months. However, is it typical for a
few boom-and-bust articles to jump into the top 10 each month.
- Overall, traffic to Wikipedia's top 50 articles appears to increase
overtime, a gain of more than a quarter of a million visits (roughly
+30%) over a 9 month period. However, it should be noted without
more data (at least one full yearly cycle), this trend is inconclusive.
- Lastly, many people seem to visit the "Wikipedia"
and "Wiki" articles. I believe this is occurring because
people are searching for these terms (rather than entering the
URL) and being directed to Wikipedia pages about the terms.
Other Notes
- Wikipedia's main page was excluded from the visualization as
it is not really an article.
- Only data from the english language version of Wikipedia was
used.
- I am using data from a Wikipedia-related, but independent project
- WikiCharts.
Thus, I cannot make any guarantees about data accuracy.
- If you plan on printing a copy for personal use, feel free.
However, I would appreciate an email. Any commercial use requires
explicit permission.
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