Wikirank.com - Measuring Wikipedia Popularity

Wikipedia is an ineluctable source when it comes to finding information on the web. It actually includes so many information that a resource like the one being reviewed right now is more or less of a necessity.

Broadly speaking, Wikirank is a portal that shows the most popular articles on the online encyclopedia via graphs and statistics. You can also see the most read articles in the last 30 days. In every case, a link that leads to the full Wikipedia entry is provided for additional convenience.

On the other hand, you can use a provided search tool for seeing how popular your favorite articles are. For example, by conducting a search I found out that James Taylor’s page was read 48,174 in the last 30 days, whereas the Zegapain page was unfortunately viewed only 4,517 times. 517 is probably the number of times I checked it out last month, so subtract that from the overall figure to get a better representation.

When I said in the first paragraph that a resource such as this one was something necessary, it was not because it would make using Wikipedia easier or faster. It is just that with so many information in there, it is nice to have some sort of reference tool for gauging which topics are attracting the most attention, and pondering on why that is happening.

“Wikirank shows you what people are reading on Wikipedia. It’s based on the actual usage data from the Wikipedia servers, which the Wikimedia foundation makes available as a public service. We take that data, process it, and give it back to you in a format that’s easy to use and share. Wikirank reveals emerging trends, and lets you embed relevant charts in blog posts and on social media sites.”

A resource like this one lets anybody inform himself on current trends.

How configurable is the site?