Canadians are in the Top Five among nationalities spending time on the Wikimedia user-generated information site.
But Wikimedia Foundation and online research company comScore want to know more about online knowledge users, Web demographics and audience trends.
Now, comScore is providing access to its global Web measurement tool, Media Metrix, to Wikimedia Foundation, and the non-profit organization says it will use it to augment its global site-usage statistics, interpret project participation and editing trends, and develop a long-term strategy to expand awareness and usage in new markets.
“Wikimedia has always had access to our server traffic logs, which report an astonishing amount of daily traffic – currently about 95 to 100 thousand requests per second. comScore Media Metrix provides something we can’t – recognized, industry standard, global measurement that helps us understand projects like Wikipedia alongside other major Web properties,” Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, said in a release. “comScore is supporting our mission by helping us better understand our global audience, millions of dedicated users and hundreds of thousands of volunteer editors, and ultimately assists us in providing more free knowledge to established and emerging Internet populations. Every day I tell someone new that Wikipedia is a top five global Web property – valuable information we would not have known without comScore.”
Top 10 Web Properties Worldwide
September 2009
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total
Unique Visitors (000)
Total Worldwide Internet Audience 1,179,318
Google Sites 879,176
Microsoft Sites 717,910
Yahoo! Sites 602,610
Facebook.com 410,953
Wikimedia Foundation Sites 325,998
AOL LLC 255,088
eBay 239,634
Ask Network 207,555
Amazon Sites 201,904
CBS Interactive 195,794
In support of Wikimedia’s mission, comScore is also leveraging its
recognized research experts to shed new light on trends and patterns
in global projects. A recent examination of average user visit time
demonstrated a uniquely high level of engagement with Wikimedia among
Latin American Internet users, particularly in Mexico and Colombia,
both among the top ten nations spending the most time on average
visiting Wikimedia Foundation projects. Countries in the Asia Pacific
region also featured prominently, with Japan as the highest engagement
audience, and New Zealand, Hong Kong and Australia also factoring in
among the top ten. Trends such as these can only be understood by
working from a large and highly representative audience sample. These
data may inform new areas of focus for the Foundation’s software
developers improving site usability and search functionality.
Top 10 Countries by Average Engagement on Wikimedia Foundation Sites
September 2009
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Average
Minutes per Visitor
Average Minutes per Visitor Worldwide 12.5
Japan 17.0
New Zealand 16.1
Mexico 15.6
United Kingdom 15.5
Canada 15.3
United States 14.7
Hong Kong 14.5
Australia 14.3
Colombia 14.1
Puerto Rico 14.1
“We’re excited to be able to leverage our unique global audience
measurement capability into a deeper understanding of how people
around the world engage with a project of global importance like
Wikimedia,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president.
“Wikimedia’s mission of engaging people around the world to cultivate
free educational content is one that endows people in every corner of
the globe with the power of knowledge and information. comScore is
proud to support such an important mission.”
comScore's objective data also helps the Foundation to tell its story,
from Wikipedia's humble beginnings in 2001 to the present, and to
direct limited organizational resources to areas of the world where it
can make the greatest difference.
The Wikimedia Foundation and comScore anticipate more collaboration
through the coming year and beyond. “comScore is such an ideal
partner for Wikimedia,” said Sue Gardner, executive director of the
Wikimedia Foundation. “Like us, they deeply concern themselves with
the global population of Internet users, and they appreciate the
significance of borderless projects like Wikipedia. By sharing their
data with us, they’re also sharing these discoveries with everyone on
the planet who wants to know more about how the Internet is growing,
how people are learning, and perhaps most importantly, what barriers
are preventing the free flow of knowledge and information.”
For more information, visit http://wikimediafoundation.org,
http://blog.wikimedia.org or www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization which operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 300 million unique visitors per month, making them
the 5th most popular web property world-wide (June, 2009). Available
in more than 265 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 12 million
articles contributed by a global volunteer community of more than
100,000 people. Based in San Francisco, CA, the Wikimedia
Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded primarily
through donations and grants.