Discover Hot Topics on Wikipedia with Wikirage

Have you ever visited Google Trends before? I do on occasion because sometimes it’s interesting to see what people are searching for. Much like Google Trends, a new Wikipedia data mining service called Wikirage tells you what the hot topics are on Wikipedia. A topic is considered "hot" based upon how many unique edits its received over a period of time.  Wikirage allows you to view the hot topics from the last hour, the last six hours, the last day, the last three days, the last week, or the last month.

Of course there are the obvious items on the list of hot topics within the last day which have been in the news, so it makes sense that they’re getting edited - like Luciano Pavarotti or the iPod Touch. However, there are also other items on the list for the last day that have nothing to do with anything in the news, like "pizza", "computer keyboard", or "Money."

Because Wikirage reminds me so much of Google Trends, I decided to compare some of the results between the two and where they rank on each list. Sure, many of the things that make Google’s Hot list aren’t on Wikirage, but many are. Some of the terms I compared weren’t exactly the same, for example on Google Trends it was "Vanessa Hudgens pictures" while Wikirage was "Vanessa Anne Hudgens."

I also decided to take a look at the hot topics from the last month - the top five were:

1. BioShock (video game)
2. Deaths in 2007
3. Akatsuki (Naruto) (Anime)
4. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (video game)
5. Moon

You’ll notice two of the top five that made the list for the month were video games, and if you take a look at the top 100 for the month, there are many, many more video games on the list. And not just video games, there is a lot of other media on the list as well that covers music, movies, and books.

Taking a look at lists like what you’ll find at Google Trends and Wikirage tells you pretty quickly what’s going on in the World right now, and what’s becoming popular. If you’re curious what’s hot and what’s not on Wikipedia, check-out Wikirage.

Source: Search Engine Land

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Tags: Web Sites, Search, Wikipedia

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