About.com just completed some research and posted “The Top 25 Web Searches of the Decade.”

Here are their top ten (you can go to their site to learn the rest)

1. Facebook
2. Baidu
3. MySpace
4. World Cup
5. Wikipedia
6. Britney Spears
7. Harry Potter
8. Shakira
9. Lord of the Rings
10. Barack Obama

://URLFAN measures the popularity of websites by blog mentions. In fact, you can type in the url address of any website and learn how popular it is using this measurement.

It also has what it calls “All-Time Top 100 Ranked Websites Listing most mentioned websites by bloggers.” Here are it’s top ten:

#1. en.wikipedia.org

#2. youtube.com

#3. flickr.com

#4. twitter.com

#5. google.com

#6. myspace.com

#7. facebook.com

#8. imdb.com

#9. nytimes.com

#10. apple.com

Thanks to Read Write Web for the tip..

Today, I’d like to share about two new applications that I’m adding to my post on how to find The Most Popular Links Being “Retweeted” On Twitter.

The first is Topsy, which lets you identify the top 100, top 1000 and the top 5000 links to sites that are being retweeted. Thanks to TechCrunch for the tip.

The other is more expansive than just Twitter but, for lack of a better place to put it, in adding it to the “retweets” list. It’s called Splurb, and it ranks links based on their popularity among several social networks — including Twitter. Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

Today, I’d like to share the American Library Association’s Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults.

They have their lists divided into themes, and there are a lot of them. You can find them all on that main page. Here’s a sampling of just a few of their recent lists:

Death & Dying: Death can be an adventure, but not everyone lives to tell about it.

Fame & Fortune: Stardom! Wealth!  Notoriety! Read all about teens aspiring to make it big.

Journey>Destination: Life is an open road when the journey is greater than the destination.

Spies & Intrigue: Political intrigue, daring deeds, great escapes, and more in this thrilling list of fiction and nonfiction about those who operate within the world of shadow.

Google Insights is a tool that allows you to map how often, and from where, people use specific search terms. TechCrunch has a useful post about it.

When I checked to see users from which countries most searched for the term “ESL,” the top three were South Korea, Cambodia, and Mongolia. When I checked on the term “EFL,” the top three were Oman, South Korea, and Poland. And when I checked “English,” the top three were Cambodia, Mongolia, and Pakistan.

I could see this site having some opportunities to create conversation in the classroom. For example, I think it could initiate an interesting conversation with Hmong students to find that the term “Hmong” was searched for most, by far, in Laos, where some Hmong still live and from where my students’ families fled. Then, when I searched for “General Vang Pao,” the most well-known leader of the Hmong here in the United States and one of several people arrested here in Sacramento last year for allegedly planning a coup in Laos, practically all the searches came from within the United States.

I have to think a little bit more about how this new tool can be used and am interested in hearing other ideas.

In addition, here are a couple of other resources for finding the most popular “search” terms:

What People Search For – Most Popular Keywords is an article that appeared almost three years ago sharing a lot places where people could find this type of info. Surprisingly enough, practically all of the links are still live, accurate, and useful.

Chromomulator is a new site that “takes the top 100 Google searches at the moment (from Google Trends) and scours the web, collecting related news, blog posts, pictures, and videos for each search. If you need to know everything about what’s hot on the net right now, the Chromomulator can tell you. Updated several times daily.”

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I’d be interested in hearing ideas on how to use these sites and their information effectively in the classroom.

The top ten are:

1) Wiki (131,383 page hits per day)

2) The Beatles (111,896)

3) Michael Jackson (79,734)

4) Favicon.ico (78,077)

5) YouTube (72,318)

6) Wikipedia (52,542)

7) Barack Obama (49,401)

8)Deaths in 2009 (48,758)

9) United States (46,545)

10) Facebook (42,679)

You can go to the article to see the rest of the list.

Wikipedia itself has a continually updated list (hourly) of its most popular pages.

Thanks to Read Write Web for the tip.

As I’ve explained in earlier pieces, I periodically post “most popular” lists of websites (and books) that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”

Today, I’d like to share two tools to use if you want to know which website links are the most popular on Twitter — in other words, what links to sites are being “retweeted” (or forwarded) most often.

There are other similar applications, but these two seem to me to be the best.  I’d be happy to hear if I’m missing something.

One is TweetMeme. It’ll show you lists of the most popular links being retweeted over three periods: “most recent,” 24 hours, and 7 days. You can also view the links by category.

Twitturly is a much more simple application that has fewer categories and only tracks popularly over a 24 hour period of time.

Topsy lets you identify the top 100, top 1000 and the top 5000 links to sites that are being retweeted. Thanks to TechCrunch for the tip.

The other is more expansive than just Twitter but, for lack of a better place to put it, in adding it to the “retweets” list. It’s called Splurb, and it ranks links based on their popularity among several social networks — including Twitter. Thanks to Mashable for the tip.

I’m adding the link to that “most popular” post.

As regular readers know, I’ve been posting “most popular” lists of websites that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”

Today, I’d like to share the most popular search search queries used by kids.  Though I’m not quite sure how they figured them out (Richard Byrne was kind enough to share an explanation in the comments on this post), Online Family Norton has a list of the top 100.

Here are the top 20 on their list (you need to go to their site to get the rest):

# 1. YouTube
# 2. Google
# 3. Facebook
# 4. Sex
# 5. MySpace
# 6. Porn
# 7. Yahoo
# 8. Michael Jackson
# 9. Fred (A popular fictional character whose YouTube channel has become a hit among kids.)
# 10. eBay
# 11. You Tube
# 12. YouTube.com
# 13. Gmail
# 14. Wikipedia
# 15. Miley Cyrus (Singer and star of the Disney Channel’s hit series “Hannah Montana.”)
# 16. Webkinz (Toy stuffed animal that comes with a secret code, allowing kids access to the Webkinz World website.)
# 17. Games
# 18. Miniclip (Website with a variety of free online games.)
# 19. Taylor Swift (Country-pop singer)
# 20. Hotmail

Thanks to Read Write Web for the tip.

As regular readers know, I’ve been posting “most popular” lists of websites that I think educators might find useful. Of course, there are a number of ways to gauge “popularity.” I just view these lists as opportunities to check-out some new sites, and find it interesting to see which ones might be particularly “popular.”

I’ve found that short funny animal videos are great to show to English Language Learner students and then — together — we write about what we saw.  In addition, I”ve used an exercise called “back to the screen” (see The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL for more information on how it works) with these types of videos.

Animal Planet is a great source for these kinds of videos.  They have a page where you can see their most-watched videos of “all time.”

You can see videos of “talking birds, water-skiing squirrels, and multi-talented dogs…”