From: reid@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups
Subject: TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY POPULARITY (DEC 92)
Keywords: arbitron, statistics
Date: 1 Jan 93 20:42:14 GMT
Organization: DEC Network Systems Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif., USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: torrey.pa.dec.com
Originator: reid@torrey.pa.dec.com

TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY POPULARITY
A companion posting explains the statistics and the algorithms that produced
them.

        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
   1 160000  4449   91%     1    12.0   100%  0.00   9.5%  news.announce.newusers 
   2 150000  4171   68%  2011  4475.8    40%  0.04   8.9%  alt.sex 
   3 130000  3754   86%   863  1782.3    19%  0.02   8.0%  misc.jobs.offered 
   4 130000  3726   84%    70   128.1     0%  0.00   7.9%  rec.humor.funny 
   5 130000  3524   87%     6   238.1    83%  0.00   7.5%  news.answers 
   6 120000  3316   56%  2216 98591.1     7%  0.85   7.1%  alt.binaries.pictures.erotica 
   7 120000  3297   84%  1359  1736.3    30%  0.02   7.0%  misc.forsale 
   8 110000  3187   89%   804  1588.9    16%  0.02   6.8%  comp.windows.x 
   9 110000  3103   51%   782  4280.2     7%  0.04   6.6%  alt.sex.stories 
  10 100000  2902   83%  1080  2764.2     8%  0.04   6.2%  rec.humor 
  11  95000  2654   90%  1430  2948.7    30%  0.05   5.7%  news.groups 
  12  93000  2594   91%    84   840.5   100%  0.02   5.5%  news.announce.newgroups 
  13  85000  2355   81%  1953  2219.1    25%  0.04   5.0%  misc.forsale.computers 
  14  84000  2342   89%  1412  2448.5     8%  0.05   5.0%  comp.lang.c 
  15  83000  2324   69%   303  1545.3    57%  0.02   5.0%  alt.activism 
  16  82000  2287   64%  1548  4363.3     9%  0.06   4.9%  alt.sex.bondage 
  17  81000  2250   86%   759  1481.6    24%  0.03   4.8%  comp.graphics 
  18  80000  2217   84%   395   801.8     4%  0.02   4.7%  misc.jobs.misc 
  19  79000  2197   88%  1201  2266.7     4%  0.05   4.7%  comp.lang.c++ 
  20  77000  2139   89%   697  1223.6    17%  0.03   4.6%  comp.unix.questions 
  21  76000  2111   80%   220  4929.7     6%  0.09   4.5%  alt.sources 
  22  75000  2091   83%    86  3619.7     0%  0.07   4.5%  comp.binaries.ibm.pc 
  23  74000  2051   73%  2966  4316.3     6%  0.08   4.4%  talk.bizarre 
  24  72000  1991   86%     -       -      -     -   4.2%  news.announce.important 
  25  71000  1982   91%   418   652.2     3%  0.02   4.2%  news.newusers.questions 
  26  71000  1973   70%     -       -      -     -   4.2%  rec.arts.erotica 
  27  70000  1960   86%  2742  4451.0    22%  0.10   4.2%  comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware 
  28  70000  1949   89%   129   826.5     1%  0.02   4.2%  news.announce.conferences 
  29  69000  1922   58%  1088 42227.4     5%  0.66   4.1%  alt.binaries.pictures.misc 
  30  69000  1919   74%  1812  4267.4    23%  0.08   4.1%  soc.culture.indian 
  31  67000  1870   12%    23   125.9     0%  0.00   4.0%  clari.news.briefs 
  32  67000  1861   87%    93  4804.6     1%  0.12   4.0%  comp.sources.misc 
  33  67000  1859   81%   313   472.5    22%  0.01   4.0%  misc.jobs.contract 
  34  66000  1845   86%   142   283.6    35%  0.01   3.9%  comp.misc 
  35  64000  1774   80%   580  1156.3    15%  0.03   3.8%  rec.music.misc 
  36  63000  1761   73%  1778  5320.4    62%  0.11   3.8%  talk.politics.misc 
  37  63000  1761   65%  1824  2843.2    22%  0.05   3.8%  alt.personals 
  38  63000  1744   82%   328   306.5    26%  0.01   3.7%  misc.wanted 
  39  62000  1739   79%  1300  2393.8     3%  0.06   3.7%  rec.arts.movies 
  40  62000  1737   86%   655  1034.2    15%  0.03   3.7%  comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc