Subscribe to RSSThe Torso of the Internet – 1,718 sites are attracting over 1 million visitors
There has been a lot of talk about the "long tail" of the internet. In December we decided to investigate various attributes of the size of the internet and walked away with two primary conclusions:
- The internet is constantly expanding. In 2006 Compete’s panel visited over 5M unique websites, representing an increase of 77% since 2001.
- The expansion of the internet is not compromising the growth of larger sites — in fact, the larger sites are getting bigger, attracting more visitors and interaction than ever before.
But what about the middle? What we refer to as "The Torso" or sites attracting over a million visitors a month. How many sites are breaking this threshold and how fast is The Torso growing?
In Q1 of 2007, there were 1,718 sites attracting over 1M visitors (U.S.). This represents a 458% increase since 2001. This sets the five year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of "The Torso" at 18.6%. By this time next year The Torso will be comprised of ~2,050 sites!
So who broke the million visitor threshold between Q1 ’06 — Q1 ’07?
Noteworthy additions to The Torso:
- Digg.com: broke the million visitor barrier in April ’06. Digg’s growth continues to impress and as of April ’07 is attracting over 15M visitors each month.
- eMusic.com: EMusic is the I-Tunes of the indie-music labels. I have been a member for years. The songs are considerably cheaper than I-Tunes, no DRM and the community is great at finding talented, but undiscovered artists.
- Foreclosure.com: A natural side effect of the recent real estate boom. Lets hope the growing popularity of the site is not indicative of a real estate crash.
- Gather.com: The social network with a brain is beginning catch on among the adult populous.
- "My" sites: There were "17" sites that broke the million visitor threshold whose domain name began with "my". Example: mybloglog.com, mygirlyspace.com, myspacestop.com, myview.com, myhotquiz.com… (I’ll stop now).
