Here is an example of a custom comparison of 5 top social network companies, based on the number of visits per month, over the period of the last 12 months.

From this graph, for example, one could draw a conclusion that the Myspace approach of allowing full site access to everyone, helped it gain a significantly higher number of daily visits that its competitor, Facebook, that only allows full profile access to approved friends.

Also, one can read from this graph that the impact of the top two (Myspace, Facebook) is significantly higher than that of the other three on the top list (Friendster, Hi5, Ning)

Compare tool also allows custom analytics based on the average stay per visit, percentage of total time spent on the internet by the users compared to the time spent on the site we’re interested in analyzing, comparison based on growth etc.

Rupert Murdoch Power Relationships at the Interactive Muckety Maps

Browsable by name, organization, or category (i.e. media, politics, etc.), Muckety Maps are a good way for figuring out the people behind big companies and news organizations. Excellent for those interested in media conglomerates and media monopoly.

Muckety Maps are a little bit complicated at the first sight but definitely worth a try.

Provides codes for embedding Muckety maps to blogs and websites.

Here is a Muckety map example for “Myspace”, and a map of it’s owner’s- Rupert Murdoch businesses.

Tip: Make sure you click through the names, and use the “tools” section to make sure the map dispalys your area of interest.

You find the map confusing or difficult to read? Drag names around to decide the position of each one of them on the screen.

Click for a larger view.

Courtesy of: Future Exploration Net

Download PDF that includes this page, as well as 2 other with Web 2.0 quotes and definitions for most common terms, and more.

Todays’ Frontpages is searchable through map view or gallery view, by region, country, or newspaper title. A readable pdf file is also available for each page.

Instant overview of 600+ newspaper front pages worldwide each day, available in gallery, interactive map, and pdf view.

The best way of using Newseum Today’s Front Pages is through interactive maps, browsable by region. This option, however, is also very good at showcasing the tool flaws.

Newseum is a world news museum based in Washington DC, and Frontpages is a product that offers significantly more access to American newspapers than others. Most of the 60+ countries that Todays’ Frontpages cover are however in the developed world, namely North America, and Europe (excluding Croatia Montenegro, and Russia). Latin America is also well covered, as well as some of the Asian Countries, while the African view sadly offers only 3 newspaper entries for the entire continent.

To study the differences in coverage of different regions, pay attention to how the orange dots are dissapearing as we switch from European to Asian or African view. Mouse over for a snapsot of the dots on the American map.

The Map, as well as the gallery view allow search by region, or by country.

Although it offers an amazing resource, Newseum still does not offer a realistic wiev of world print media. Majority of Great Britain entries are tabloids, and for most countries only some regions are covered. Sometimes, there is an unreasonably high coverage of certain areas (such as Sardinia in Italy that provides almost as many entries as the rest of the country.

Only 3 (yes, three) out of 600+ entries are from Africa, two of which are in countries confining with Europe.

Continues on (Click) Media Scrapbook