The 25 most popular television broadcasts, actors and directors based on anonymous, aggregated data from DVR owners, updated weekly.
posted by crunchland on Feb 23, 2006 - 27 comments

Classic FM Radio Analysis scans play lists from various FM radio stations and allows you to make queries such as how often was Beethoven's Symphony #9 played, what are the most popular pieces played, who are the most popular composers, etc.
posted by RonZ on Aug 4, 2005 - 4 comments

Where Has All the Acid Gone? (Anyone think our old friend will be making a return trip any time soon?)
posted by alms on Apr 5, 2004 - 67 comments

Paris Beats Bush
More viewers watched The Simple Life than George Bush's interview with Diane Sawyer. What does that say about America?
posted by fenriq on Dec 19, 2003 - 41 comments

The Name-O-Meter: How's Your Name Been Doing Since 1900? How does it rank in the Top 1000? Is its popularity waning or increasing? Disappointed either way? Look up what your name means to help find out why.[From Parenting.com, via top-ranking Nutcote. More Inside.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Apr 20, 2002 - 40 comments

At least they ask before they track your web usage. We're all familiar with Neilsen ratings and how a few select families get to decide when 20/20 will finally end. I guess it was only a matter of time before they came sniffing around looking to track popular websites. People who sign up get gifts, prizes and free technical support - at least that's the deal for Canadians.
posted by Salmonberry on Apr 1, 2002 - 4 comments

Social Cruelty in Adults: Does High School Ever End? An upcoming ABCNews Special with John Stossel (airing Friday) explores peer pressure, being in the "in crowd", and the role that popularity plays not only during our years in the groves of academe but also in the professional workplace. We'll see John's report on Friday, but I wish to redirect this discussion to the mefi crowd: Were you in the "in crowd" during your high school/collegiate years or on the outside looking in? Did it even matter, and if it did, how and in what way? Has it played a distinct role in the person who you feel you've become?
posted by iceblink on Feb 13, 2002 - 43 comments

The Secret Lives of Numbers A couple of programmers took it upon themselves to use "a popular search engine"(just say it: Google) to determine the relative popularity of every integer up to one million. Even if you just take it as a big case of overthink, it's kind of fun to play with the Java-based visual representation, which provides some of the terms associated with the numbers as you click on them.
[Short warning inside; read before visiting.]
posted by Su on Feb 11, 2002 - 20 comments

Washington Post/ABC News Poll: Bush's approval rating at 87% - I wonder if that rating is going to go on a roller-coaster ride similar to his father's.
posted by mrbula on Sep 13, 2001 - 17 comments

Is the NY Times ranking its stories by "popularity" as they say, or as this writer suggests, what's "interesting"?
posted by lowblow on Jun 6, 2001 - 3 comments

Popularity kills: nosepilot hit (almost) into oblivion Not all Flash sucks: many of us who have dreamed of putting our fists through the screen at yet another stupid corporate Flash intro loved Al Sacui's dreamy little piece. But now Sacui is looking for some way to cover or modify his ISP's $16,000 bill (which he just found out about yesterday -- no warning beforehand that traffic was a problem). He's hoping to sort out the financial problems and has people in contact with his ISP re the debt, but what he really needs is someone to mirror or co-host the 4.8 Mb of files that make up the site. Can you help out?
posted by maudlin on Mar 9, 2001 - 34 comments

It's true. All the popular kids in high school were stinking liars.
posted by mathowie on Dec 16, 1999 - 0 comments