Which websites are most popular in Singapore?
By Murray Bourne, 31 Dec 2006
[Note: This post was written at the end of 2006. The situation changes all the time - visit the links given in the article for the current data.]
You get an interesting insight into people's interests via Alexa's Top Sites feature. Comparing global and Singapore usage (from Top Sites Singapore):
| SINGAPORE Top 10 | GLOBAL Top 10 | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Yahoo! | 1. Yahoo! | |
| 2. Microsoft Network (MSN) | 2. Microsoft Network (MSN) | |
| 3. YouTube | 3. Google | |
| 4. Friendster | 4. Baidu.com | |
| 5. Google.com.sg | 6. YouTube | |
| 5. Myspace | 7. Orkut.com | |
| 6. Google | 8. Windows Live | |
| 7. Blogger.com | 9. www.qq.com | |
| 8. Windows Live | 10.www.sina.com.cn | |
| 9. Megaupload | ||
| 10. LiveJournal.com |
It is interesting that there are 3 Chinese language sites in the top 10 globally. (Baidu is a popular Chinese search engine.) Growing Internet usage is yet another aspect of the rise and rise of China.
My observations, compared to global usage:
- Singaporeans like watching movies (YouTube)
- Singaporeans are lonely (Friendster)
- Singaporeans are heavily into blogging (Blogger.com and LiveJournal)
- Singaporeans just love to share files (music? videos?) at MegaUpload
Curiously, Singapore has a higher proportion of Chinese people (about 77%) compared to the whole world (about 17%), but the use of Chinese web sites (qq.com and sina.com.cn) is not as high in Singapore as it is globally. Baidu at #12 and 6park.com at #18 are the highest ranking Chinese-specific sites used in Singapore. Sure, English language use is widespread among the Singaporean Chinese, but still...
You can find out the usage patterns for your country at Top Sites.
Note: The Alexa statistics are obtained from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed. So the above lists are only an indication of relative traffic and may not be accurate. It could well be that the Alexa toolbar is used a lot in China, and this would have the effect of moving the qq.com and sina.com sites higher up the global list.
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