Top 5 non-social blog-memetrackers: Technorati vs. Blogdex vs. Techmeme vs. Daypop vs. Memeorandum

Today, a look at web sites that aggregate/rank blog memes, sometimes called memetrackers. However, I excluded the social media sites where the content is determined by people's votes, e.g., Digg. Some no longer exist but were influential in the past: Blogdex and Daypop. The current leading non-social memetrackers are memeorandum, Techmeme, Technorati.



Guess what: Technorati obliterated all the others. However, it is also a very popular blog search site which probably explains the distortion. Note how it saw a steep climb between 2004 and 2007, the latter being its zenith. Anyway, let's leave out Technorati and get more meaningful results:



First was Blogdex, now defunct. It displayed the opposite trend of Technorati: a steep decline. Second was Techmeme which only started in 2006 but quickly overpowered all others. Next came Daypop which experienced a continuous decline into oblivion like Blogdex, just not as precipitous. Memeorandum has declined somewhat from its late 2005 peak but still finished second. Let's have a look at the country rankings for each term, starting with Technorati:



The top 3 was Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Then came Indonesia and the US was only fifth. Interesting! How about Blogdex?



It was almost uniquely Googled by people in the US, Canada and the UK. Maybe blogs were just not common elsewhere in 2004-2005? Not sure about that. Next, Techmeme:



The US came first, followed by India and Canada. This memetracker has an IT tech focus which potentially explains India's rank. It was remarkable that Southeast Asia, so prominent with Technorati, didn't even figure in the top 10. What were the rankings for Daypop?



I saw the exact same pattern as for Blogdex (1. US, 2. Canada, 3. UK) with one exception: France joined in on no. 4. Again though, no other countries were really interested in Daypop. Finally: memeorandum.



This one had an identical pattern as Blogdex: 1. US, 2. Canada, 3. UK, and almost nothing behind those.

Fast Food Competition

Today, a look at five major fast food chains: McDonald's vs. Kentucky Fried Chicken vs. Subway vs. Burger King vs. Taco Bell. I used the "Food & Drink" filter in Google Insights for Search.



McDonald's dominated, followed by the intertwined duo of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Subway that were switching position frequently. Next came Burger King and finally Taco Bell. Interestingly, the growth rate in Google-popularity seemed to decrease more and more from no. 1 to the last one: the field was more separated in the end than in the beginning. Let's show the country rankings for each chain, beginning with McDonald's:



The top 3 was Singapore, Australia and only then the US! How about KFC?



Singapore led again, then Hong Kong and Malaysia; the US didn't even make the top 10... Next, Subway:



This chain displayed a bit of a different pattern: 1. US, 2. Canada and 3. New Zealand. Still, Singapore was fifth. We moved on to Burger King:



The US loved this chain, followed by Germany and—you guessed it—Singapore. Finally, how did Taco Bell fare?



This time we had the US at the top again, then Costa Rica and Canada. Where was Singapore? In sixth place. Overall, Singapore was in the top 6 for all five chains while the US was in the top 3 each time except for its non-appearance in KFC's top 10.