The Elvis Index for KM in 1999

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 in 1998 and 1999.

• 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 Since 'Elvis' is the highest-ranking name that's neither religious nor soon-out-of-date, his count on any day (eg 148.137 pages on January 1st 1998) serves as the 100% marker.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	Growth (%)
January 1999	30.812	7.1 %	124
February 1999	33.801	7.9 %	146
March 1999	33.888	7,5 %	146
April 1999	34.734	7,4 %	153
May 1999	462	0,1 %	-97
June 1999	35.188	7,5 %	156
July 1999	53.214	9,4 %	287
August 1999	54.218	9,5 %	287
September 1999	55.833	19,3 %	306
October 1999	55.529	9,7 %	304
November 1999	92.271	14,1 %	571
December 1999	84.837	12,5 %	517

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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	Growth (%)
January 1999	1.270	0.3 %	185
February 1999	1.326	0.3 %	198
March 1999	1.336	0,3 %	200
April 1999	1.253	0,3 %	182
May 1999	1.665	0,3 %	274
June 1999	1.607	0.3 %	261
July 1999	1.961	0,3 %	341
August 1999	1.489	0,3 %	235
September 1999	1.534	0,5 %	245
October 1999	2.045	0,4 %	360
November 1999	2.520	0,4 %	466
December 1999	2.576	0,4 %	479

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What's the popularity of Elvis?

The number of pages about elvis 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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