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.

One vs. Two vs. Three vs. Four vs. Five

Numbers are everywhere, aren't they? I had a look at the first five:



No. 1 was... one, clearly so. Hmm... Maybe we should include the actual digits too—Google Insights for Search counts only the numbers by themselves, i.e., 1 but not 102.



Lo and behold, two was now no. 1. Why would that be? Also, when I read the country rankings in the first analysis, Lithuania was first for one. Something tells me that there may be a Lithuanian word written "one" but with a different meaning. Then came the Philippines and the US. In the second graph, the top number, two or 2, was searched the most in Japan, followed by Estonia and Israel. Oh well...

Flu vs. Asthma vs. Pneumonia vs. Bronchitis vs. Sinusitis

Today, I heard on NPR about a new web site: Google Flu Trends. It lets you see where there is more search volume for flu in the US so you can track flu activity by state with comparison for previous years. In other words, this is a Google Insights for Search analysis presented with a more user-friendly interface. It made me think: maybe I should face-off five common diseases?



Worldwide, the flu virus dominated, followed by resp. asthma, pneumonia, bronchitis and sinusitis. The large peaks in October 2004 and October 2005 should correspond with serious flu epidemics. The seasonal aspect of the flu is well known: it occurs in winter. Pneumonia and bronchitis also showed small increases in winter. I proceeded to perform the same analysis for nine English-speaking countries/territories: Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and the US.



















The winter of 2005-2006 was a significant peak for the flu in all these countries, other peaks displayed more variation. Some countries, e.g., Ireland and New Zealand, really only had one flu epidemic while for instance Canada and the US had a flu peak every winter. In India, the diseases' trend lines fell through time, perhaps reflecting better prevention and/or treatment through the years?

There is another way of looking at the data: by disease.











Note that the Philippines were no. 1 three times. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands popped up in the top 10 for bronchitis because the term was exactly the same in German and Dutch, unlike for other diseases.

The "Social Sins": Anti-War vs. Anti-Abortion vs. Anti-Racism vs. Anti-Poverty vs. Anti-Torture

Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput recently shattered the wall supposedly separating Church and State in the US ("Obama the 'most committed' abortion-rights major-party presidential candidate since the landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion in 1973."). He was of course not the first prelate to do so, his companions were among others former St. Louis, now Vatican Archbishop Raymond L. Burke (Democratic Party = "party of death"), St. Louis Bishop Robert J. Herman (coming election = "Judgement Day"), Dallas Bishop Kevin Farrell and Fort Worth Bishop Kevin Vann ("The reading of the letter during Mass on Sunday at Holy Trinity Church in downtown Dallas prompted about two dozen parishioners to walk out."), etc. Progressive Catholics are pushing back against these prelates' myopic obsession with abortion, e.g., Lisa Sowle Cahill (Professor of Theology at Boston College), Douglas Kmiec (Professor of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush), Cathleen Kaveny (Professor of Law and Theology at the University of Notre Dame), Nicholas P. Cafardi (former dean of the Duquesne University School of Law in Pittsburgh; recently de facto forced to resign as trustee of Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio), etc.

In light of all this, I thought it useful to face off the attention some of the most commonly cited "social sins" had been getting from Googlers.



I widened the search to include the "against ..." phrases so as to try to account for all the Google-popularity. Worldwide, anti-war was very dominant, even more so in the early years when the Iraq War was still more in the news. Anti-abortion was a steady second and just this month overtook anti-war. Note the anti-racism high peak in February 2005. Let's have a closer look at each "social sin" now, starting with anti-war:



Interest was the highest by far in the US and from the top searches we learnt that the Iraq War indeed was mostly the context. How about anti-abortion?



Abortion was a major concern in the US and the Philippines. Supposedly hyper-Catholic Ireland didn't even show up in the top 10. Among the top and rising searches, I counted six that were looking for arguments against abortion, only three were "pro-life," i.e., interested in the opposite, and the majority (5) were neutral. Next, anti-racism:



Ireland was the clear leader, followed by the UK and Canada. The large interest in racism in Ireland might have had something to do with the aftermath of the "2004 Citizenship Referendum, in which, at a majority of four to one, the Irish electorate voted for the removal of birth-right citizenship to children of migrants." The US only came in at no. 7. I guess we've solved all our problems in that area ;-) What about the context of the searches? Soccer leagues organized campaigns, the music world got involved, Nike jumped on board, etc. The anti-poverty platform showed the following geographical pattern:



The Philippines was again no. 1, followed by Canada and Ireland. The US lagged far behind at no. 8. Finally, I reproduce the geography and context of anti-torture:



Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia were most interested in the problem of torture. The US came out seventh but was actually not that far behind in absolute interest numbers. The UN Convention Against Torture, human rights, refugees and even cat torture formed the context.

Golden Retriever vs. German Shepherd vs. Yorkshire Terrier vs. Labrador Retriever vs. Staffordshire Bull Terrier

Using data from the American Kennel Club (2007), the Australian National Kennel Council (2007), the Canadian Kennel Club (2007) and the UK Kennel Club (2006) (see Wikipedia), I calculated what were the five most commonly registered dog breeds in these four countries together: an Anglo-Saxon top 5 so to speak. I did this by assigning ranking points in reverse of the rankings, e.g, the German Shepherd, no. 3 in Canada, got 8 ranking points from Canada. The four kennel clubs' top 10s actually accounted for only 22 distinct dog breeds. This was the full list by the way:

• 1. Labrador Retriever 40
  
• 2. German Shepherd (Dog) 32
  
• 3. Golden Retriever 26
  
• 4. Staffordshire Bull Terrier 14
  
• 4. Yorkshire Terrier 14
  
• 6. Cavalier King Charles Spaniel 12
  
• 6. (English) Cocker Spaniel 12
  
• 8. Boxer 10
  
• 8. Poodle 10
  
• 10. (English) Springer Spaniel 8
  
• 11. Beagle 6
  
• 11. Shetland Sheepdog 6
  
• 13. Border Collie 5
  
• 14. Dachshund 4
  
• 14. Miniature Schnauzer 4
  
• 14. Pug 4
  
• 14. Shih Tzu 4
  
• 18. West Highland White Terrier 3
  
• 19. Dalmatian 2
  
• 20. Bernese Mountain Dog 1
  
• 20. Border Terrier 1
  
• 20. Bulldog 1
  
• 20. Rottweiler 1
  

So what did Google Insights for Search teach me?



Google-popularity ranked the doggies this way:

1. Golden Retriever
   
2. German Shepherd
   
3. Yorkshire Terrier
   
4. Labrador Retriever
   
5. Staffordshire Bull Terrier

This latter list is different from the four-kennel-club rankings. The Labrador Retriever (no. 1) switched places with the Golden Retriever (no. 4). The Yorkie threatened for some time to overtake the German Shepherd but in the end didn't succeed. The Golden Retriever suffered an outspoken decline but stayed clearly on top. But let's look at another feature of Google Insights for Search: split-ups of how the different dogs did in specific countries, starting with the Golden Retriever:



Golden Retrievers were most popular in the US, Austria and Canada. When digging deeper, in the US, the top states were Maine, Colorado and Alaska. How about the German Shepherd?



This time, the US, Australia and South Africa were tops while inside the US it was Alaska, North Carolina and Virginia. Germany wasn't even in the top 10 but of course they would use the German word, Deutscher Schäferhund, to search. Next, the Yorkie.



Lo and behold, Hungary searched most for the lapdog, then South Africa and the US (top states: Georgia, West Virginia, Mississipi). Let's check on the good old Lab:



Labrador Retrievers were Google-popular in the US, the Philippines and Canada. The top 3 US states were Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire. Last but not least, to utilize a well-worn cliché, came the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, a breed with which I must admit I wasn't familiar.



The UK, Norway and Australia were most interested. The US came in only 9th this time (top states: Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana).