Internet Allstars Seven Years Later

How are the most 50 popular websites from 2001 doing now? This kind of followup is always revealing. I wish we would do it more often. Here is a quick snapshot of the allstars from then and the percent change in their attention ratings.

Max Freiert of Compete, who did this analysis wraps up with this conclusion:

* Consolidation of Search: In 2001, people apparently had a really hard time finding stuff. In the top 25 sites, 10 were some form of search engine or portal. With the exception of the MSN, Yahoo and Google, the rest have fallen out of the picture.

* Shift toward socialization: The top sites in 2001 were predominately focused on delivering one-way information, whether it be through search, professional produced media, or ecommerce. In 2007, the top 50 are skewed heavily towards social sites, so much so, in fact, that MySpace, Youtube, and Facebook account for a collective 14% of all time spent online.

* Increasing entertainment: With broadband speed comes broadband media and games. Pogo.com, runescape.com, and neopets.com all live in the top 25 sites on the web.