Channel 2 wichita Blog · Wichita related Web stuff… and, continuing coverage of the 2 wichita Bookmarks Project
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Thanks to everyone for the well wishes, questions and comments about the Web Map of Wichita. We’re glad you like what you see.  Stay tuned, we aren’t done yet. 

We released the first version of the map in April 2008 based on sites in our ranked index at the time.  Many good local sites and blogs were not indexed, and therefore not included on the map. We’ve been feverishly updating the index with new sites since then. In late September we will release a new Web Map of Wichita to coincide with the official launch of 2 wichita.

Hyperlocal Bookmarks

Our main focus around here is the local bookmarks app.  Everything else, the map, blog, site index and other lab projects are secondary.

Over the coming weeks and months we think localized bookmarks can become a unique asset to the local Web culture.  A central link feed can provide a place for thoughtful Web users, bloggers and other Wichita webbians’ to showcase and share good local content. 

In its current state, the bookmarks slowly churn-on thanks to a small group alpha contributors periodically adding wichita-related news, videos, photos and other tidbits to the log. Over the next few weeks we will be inviting many more locals to contribute.  Sign up for a beta invite now!

This is the first report from Wicsi, which ranks over 1000 sites in the Wichita-area Web orbit.

Don’t expect anything awe-inspiring on a list of the top ten Web sites in Wichita, Kansas. They are what they are, familiar, functional and fixed with deep roots in the traditional Internet.

Wichita’s Top 10

As compiled in the Wichita Web Site Index

1. Wichita Eagle
2. Wichita State University (dampened)
3. KAKE TV Channel 10
4. KWCH TV Channel 12
5. KSNW TV Channel 3
6. Sedgwick County
7. Warren Theaters
8. Wichita Public Library
9. Wichita Public Schools
10. City of Wichita

Two Behemoths

• WSU is by far the most visited site “in Wichita.” However, due to heavy national and international Web traffic and other user-patterns particular to university domains, we dampened their score to reflect “local interest.”
• No surprise to find Wichita’s big media outlets in the top five.  Old Media holds the high ground on the local Webscape. The Wichita Eagle site dominates the news/media genre with more daily visitors than the top three TV stations combined.

This short list ranks the top Web site genres found in Wicsi. We figure by adding the total average monthly unique visitors from all sites within its respective category. Where unique visitor data was not available we estimated by comparing similarly ranked sites.

1. News and Media
2. Education
3. Arts and Entertainment
4. Blogs
5. Restaurants and Bars

The News and Media genre has the fewest sites in our survey, but the strength of The Wichita Eagle easily pushes that category to the top of this list.

An argument can be made that blogs garner the most attention from Wichita Web surfers. While already a formidable local genre,  there are many newly-created blogs not in Wicsi yet. Not to mention the hundreds of smaller blogs we will never document. If you make the leap and put all user-generated content (MySpaces, Flickrs, Twitter pages etc.) in the blog category; they would grab the top spot on this list. For the purposes of our index, and this survey, we are sticking to a strict interpretation of blog.

2 wichita is all about local Web content. To that end, our bookmarks do a fine job collecting and organizing local content. However, it leaves us wondering, which sites are most popular to Wichitans? What blogs do people visit the most? Who is rising and falling in the local Webscape?

Our bookmarks won’t answer these questions. We need a whole new system to identify and track top content providers in the area.

Our solution is a local Web measurement/ranking system we call Wicsi, the Wichita Web Site Index.

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