The KM Index for 1998

The KM Index for 'knowledge management'

The interest in knowledge management is still increasing, resulting in an increasing number of pages referring to this subject. But the number of pages on the Internet is also increasing. At the end of 1997 there were about 100 million pages indexed by AltaVista, the search engine from Digital. In May 1998 AltaVista claims to have indexed 140 million pages.
This page describes the KM Index, a method for comparing the visibility of every person, place and subject on the Internet. It also shows the evolution of visibility of 'knowledge management' and 'kennismanagement' (the Dutch equivalent) on the Internet since january 1998.

• What is the KM Index?
• How is it calculated?
• What's the popularity of 'knowledge management'?
• What's the popularity of 'kennismanagement'? (the Dutch equivalent)
• What's the popularity of Elvis?
• How reliable are the results?

What is the KM Index?

The KM Index is based on the Elvis Index which was first introduced by Jon Barger in October 1997. On his homepage you can find the popularity calculations of over 500 names and objects on 15 October 1997.

All popularity on the Internet is in this method related to the popularity of Elvis Presley. Since the absolute counts are always changing as the World Wide Web grows, it's necessary to choose a single reference-point that everything else can be related to. Since 'Elvis' is the highest-ranking name that's neither religious nor soon-out-of-date, his count on any day (eg 148.137 pages on January 1st 1998) serves as the 100% marker.

Almost no personal names achieve the rarified strata above Elvis. A single page may currently be seen as 7.3 micro-elvises (but this figure is always declining as the World Wide Web grows). Some results:

• God is seven times as popular as Elvis!
• Jesus is three times more popular!
• Microsoft is almost twice as popular as God (and 14 times as popular as Elvis).
• The Beatles are half as popular as Elvis.
• Love is twice as popular as sex (and 14 times as popular as Elvis).

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How is it calculated?

A query on the AltaVista search-engine's "Advanced Search" page makes it possible to get an exact count of all pages on the World Wide Web containing *any* given word or phrase.
To measure a word or phrase, first get the current figure for 'elvis', then divide that into the figure for your phrase. Finally multiply this by 100 % to get the percentage (100 % * phrase / elvis).

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What's the popularity of 'knowledge management'?

The number of pages on the internet mentioning 'Knowledge management' is still increasing. The figure below shows the development in pages about knowledge management in 1998.

Period	Number of documents	Elvis Index	Indexed
January 1998	13.752	9,2 %	100
February 1998	17.506	8,6 %	127
March 1998	11.978	7,7 %	87
April 1998	19.652	12,4 %	143
May 1998	22.735	15,0 %	165
June 1998	27.918	7,0 %	203
July 1998	28.045	7,0 %	204
August 1998	24.936	6,6 %	181
September 1998	27.079	6,7 %	197
October 1998	26.604	9,0 %	193
November 1998	32.810	7,9 %	239
December 1998	31.055	7,3 %	226

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What's the popularity of 'kennismanagement'? (the Dutch equivalent)

The figure below shows the development in pages about 'kennismanagement' in 1998.

Period	Number of documents	Elvis Index	Indexed
January 1998	445	0,3 %	100
February 1998	455	0,2 %	102
March 1998	622	0,4 %	140
April 1998	656	0,4 %	147
May 1998	718	0,5 %	161
June 1998	834	0,2 %	187
July 1998	836	0,2 %	188
August 1998	803	0,2 %	180
September 1998	815	0,2 %	183
October 1998	745	0,3 %	167
November 1998	1318	0,3 %	296
December 1998	1249	0,3 %	281

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What's the popularity of Elvis?

The number of pages about elvis in the period January-June 1998 keep fluctuating significantly.

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How reliable are the results?

Of course the results are just to be seen as an indication. Not all pages on the Internet are indexed and not all pages can be indexed since they're inside databases. So AltaVista is always lagging the net as a whole. Another aspect is the fact that AltaVista used upto May 27th 1998 several multiple unsynchronised copies of the index. This degree of unsynchronisation causes the index to be fluctuating. The results therefore change through time. Also has the way AltaVista presents the counts of pages been changed in October 1998. This caused a 'jump' for the results of November 1998.
Digital claims however on May 27th 1998 that their new index is truly a global resource.

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