The Who’s When & Where of People with a Page on Wikipedia

Founded in 2001 to study the societal implications of the internet, the Oxford Internet Institute has a growing collection of data visualizations that sketch out the state of information proliferation worldwide.

Below we have a Time-series of the Distribution of Biographies on Wikipedia over the Last Five Centuries, which provides a startling reminder of how many people are still not part of the conversation.

To see how far our globalization has yet to go, check out the OII’s charts on Academic Knowledge and Language, User-generated Content in Google and A Geography of Twitter.

The Underwater Network of Distraction

posted in: Maps, Smog 0

If you were wondering where we are hiding all the cords, the answer is at the bottom of the ocean.

Mapped below, you will find the fiber optic cables that make the internet a world wide web.  Zoom in to find out who is behind every one of them with the 2012 Submarine Cable Map

…or just gawk at the old school beauty of it all.

“In my day, we ran cables along the ocean floor to get our internet!”

[Maps by TeleGeography; Nicolas Rapp via Flowing Data]

The Internet Needs Freedom Too

Ape Con Myth has joined the list of organizations supporting the Declaration of Internet Freedom and encourages you to take a second, read the Declaration below and then click through to take action.

It’d be so easy to mess this up.  Thankfully it is just as easy to not do so.

Act today and save yourself from more of CISPA/TPP/ACTA/SOPA/PIPA/COICA/ETC tomorrow!

The Super PIPA-SOPA Action/Info Flowchart Reference Guide

Whether you are just tuning in or have been following the saga from the start, The Super PIPA-SOPA Action/Info Flowchart Reference Guide is ready to get you up to speed and lay the whole thing out.

SOPA getting shelved might be a move in the right direction, but the companies supporting it aren’t just going to forget about the internet.  It isn’t over and we shouldn’t let this momentum go…

(click to enlarge)

And don’t forget, January 18th is Internet Blackout Day!  Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing and a host of other sites will be joining in to get the word out.  Find out more and get blackout code for your site at SopaStrike.  It is sure to be an interesting day.

#MoveYourDomain Day

posted in: Action, Ape Con Myth 0

We’ve talked about SOPA, one of the Internet Blacklist Bills currently simmering in Congress, and the actions against it.  We’ve also talked about the need to do business with the companies we want to see thrive, as opposed to just the ones who make it convenient.  Now, the two are coming together.

Today, Go Daddy customers have been called on to transfer their domains as part of the #MoveYourDomain Day of action in protest of Go Daddy’s support of SOPA.  As such, at midnight on this December 29th, 2011, Ape Con Myth initiated the transfer of the following domains:

ApeConMyth.com
SandwichCorp.com
TheShutUpSociety.com
TheParty.us
YellowTreeGranfalloon.org

They will now be residing with ACM’s hosting company, Dreamhost.

If you have a domain with Go Daddy, want to get out, but don’t know where to go with it, a few registrars are offering discounts along with donations to EFF for each transfer.  And for those happy enough with Go Daddy’s reversal on SOPA, what are your feelings on elephants?

Top 50 Websites in the U.S.

posted in: ACM images, Input, Smog 0

That is, the top 54 websites according to Alexa on June 28th, 2011, minus technical/non-user sites at #34 and #41 and adult sites at #43 and #50.

The only surprise on this list might be Myspace’s continued presence. For a dying website, it still makes the top 50, out of, you know, over 100,000,000 active sites. But also of note is the quick and dramatic drop-off in reach, or the estimated percentage of internet users visiting a site. While Google racked up 52% and Facebook 43% reach yesterday, a great many in this grouping didn’t break 2%.



Wonder what this would look like broken out by owner…

Update: This is what it looks like.

Top 50 Websites in the World

posted in: ACM images, Input, Smog 0

That is, the top 50 sites according to Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner for April 2011.  There are many other measures.

Anyway, this is global, so there’s very likely some sites you haven’t seen before.  For non-English pages, you can click on the favicon for the translated version, but you’ll shortchange yourself if you skip the original…

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