Post by PapaSmurerf on Sept 20, 2007 22:00:03 GMT -5
In Wiki-Politics, Ron Paul Leads the Field
Written by Matt Pace -- August 30th, 2007
At this time during the run up to the last presidential election, Wikipedia was in its infancy. In July of 2003, the online encyclopedia attracted less than half a million US visitors. Fast forward four years. In July of 2007 over 41 million people, or 1 in 4 people online in the US, visited the site. Wikipedia is now the 12th most visited website and is likely to play a significant role in informing and influencing those who will choose our next president.
All of the candidates have exhaustive articles dedicated to them on Wikipedia that offer in-depth biographical information and near-real time updates on the ups and downs of their campaigns. As anyone (including supporters and detractors) can edit the information, Wikipedia provides a counterweight to the carefully scripted information released on the candidates’ official websites.
The table below compares the activity on each candidate’s Wikipedia articles in July in terms of total readers, time spent on the article (reading, commenting, editing, etc.) and their share of all time spent across all of these articles. Finally, the table compares the overlap between a candidate’s Wikipedia readership and their official website traffic. For example, in July, 42% of the people who read Ron Paul’s Wikipedia article also visited RonPaul2008.com.
Rankings across these metrics were then averaged. Who comes out on top? The results might come as a surprise to those accustomed to seeing the party front runners capturing all of the headlines.
-Full article with charts on blog.compete.com-
Written by Matt Pace -- August 30th, 2007
At this time during the run up to the last presidential election, Wikipedia was in its infancy. In July of 2003, the online encyclopedia attracted less than half a million US visitors. Fast forward four years. In July of 2007 over 41 million people, or 1 in 4 people online in the US, visited the site. Wikipedia is now the 12th most visited website and is likely to play a significant role in informing and influencing those who will choose our next president.
All of the candidates have exhaustive articles dedicated to them on Wikipedia that offer in-depth biographical information and near-real time updates on the ups and downs of their campaigns. As anyone (including supporters and detractors) can edit the information, Wikipedia provides a counterweight to the carefully scripted information released on the candidates’ official websites.
The table below compares the activity on each candidate’s Wikipedia articles in July in terms of total readers, time spent on the article (reading, commenting, editing, etc.) and their share of all time spent across all of these articles. Finally, the table compares the overlap between a candidate’s Wikipedia readership and their official website traffic. For example, in July, 42% of the people who read Ron Paul’s Wikipedia article also visited RonPaul2008.com.
Rankings across these metrics were then averaged. Who comes out on top? The results might come as a surprise to those accustomed to seeing the party front runners capturing all of the headlines.
-Full article with charts on blog.compete.com-