Celebrating excellence in digital media AIMIA

HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN WEB

WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN INTERNET PROJECT?

The History of the Australian Internet project is a new initiative from Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) aimed at creating a permanent public record of the major trends in the most popular online properties and services of Australian Internet as they have evolved and continue to evolve in the early part of the 21st century.

For other media, such as book publishing, recorded music and film — the keeping of public records such as music sales charts, television ratings, bestseller lists and box office records have created important and enduring chronicles of the evolution of these industries in Australia.

While there now are a number of excellent commercial web measurement tools and services, many of these are not surprisingly focused on near term trends and the effects of specific campaigns, offers and initiatives.

Until now, there has been no public record of the larger and longer-term trends in the Australian online economy. This project is a first attempt to address this gap and is a first step toward creating an ongoing picture of the broader landscape and longer-term trends in Australian Internet usage.

HOW CAN I PLAY WITH AND EXPLORE THE DATA?

To track the progress of particular websites you are interested in, Dr Greg Turner Director, the Interaction Consortium has created an extraordinary and beautiful interactive visualisation tool. You be the judge, you can track the relative progress of individual or groups of sites and better understand the data and trends visually. You can explore the data yourself HERE or click on the below image. To view the Trends & Insights CLICK HERE

History of The Web

To view videos illustrating key trends revealed by the AIMIA History of the Australian Web please CLICK HERE

WHAT DATA IS AVAILABLE AND HOW WAS IT WORKED OUT?

  • Lists of the Top 100 Online Properties or websites are listed for each year(pdf)
  • Properties are ranked in terms of total audience size
  • Audience size is measured by the total number of Australian visitors per quarter averaged across each of the four quarters of each calendar year.
  • The initial release of data covers each calendar year from 2001 through to 2008
  • The data used is provided by Nielsen Online and sourced from their Australian household and business panel data.

Acknowledgements

  • Big thanks to Nielsen Online (www.nielsen-netratings.com.au) especially Megan Clarken, Stuart Pike and Ben Caroll and help in its early conception Andrew Eckford
  • Greg Turner and Aram Dulyan at The Interaction Consortium www.interactionconsortium.com
  • John Butterworth, Paul McCarthy and Jaime Ryan from AIMIA www.aimia.com.au.

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