by Web Minister, May 1, 2002

April, 2002 was yet another record for users on the MIM web page. However, while the number of pages also increased, the increase was small and total data transferred went down from March, 2002 which appears to be the pattern from last year as well. We believe we now know the reasons for MIM web page traffic increases. This past month saw a decrease in projects carried out to support web page traffic and as a result, we now see only moderate gains.

Now we are focussed on the summer when our readership usually goes down precipitously. This summer we have prepared for ourselves the goal of keeping Internet readers fired up about MIM. Together with other departments relevant to the infrastructure-building organization PIRAO, we are setting about to keep MIM website traffic up this summer. Along these lines we continue to receive major support from mousnonya@yahoo.com. Other major developers working in the background include RAIL and the Central Committee of MIM. Then of course, we must also credit the various translators who have really helped to expand MIM's audience. We'd also like to extend credit to the PIRAO's efforts in conjunction with the Boston comrades of various organizations. Hopefully combined we can make this summer a success. We have to keep an eye on the anniversary of September 11th, 2002. The imperialists will be making their noise, but we are also preparing to be more influential than ever. To go on the offensive this summer, we will lean on mousnonya@yahoo.com and the Boston comrades. Hopefully they will be the ones to make this an unprecedented summer for the web page.

Summary statistics comparing April 2001 and April 2002

Name of website(s)	%change in unique visitors from 2001 to 2002
The Weather Channel	+26.3%
Amazon	+52.0%
Gannett (newspaper chain)	+59.0%
NBC (all combined sports, entertainment, news)	-55.0%
AOL Time-Warner	+32.3%

Source: http://www.jmm.com/xp/jmm/press/2001/pr_041301.xml and
http://www.jmm.com/xp/jmm/press/mediaMetrixTop50.xml

The above chart confirms my impression that in past years 90% annual growth was common, but now in this past year Internet traffic that is driven by U.$. users has to "level off" relative to past growth. However, MIM website growth is still increasing 80% or 90% a year and I would like to think it is our efforts that have created that situation. If anyone has data showing that Internet traffic is still growing 90% a year, please send it along to mim3@mim.org. We would like to understand web traffic as well as we can.

In April 2001, no single article had more than 500 hits. This year, we have 666 hits on a Black Panther article, and two stories in Chinese with over 500 hits. We also have a radio show, an Attica flyer and our FAQ article explaining common myths about Mao coming in at 500 or more hits.

This month, many of the statistics are similar to those in recent months already published, so now I will present some of the odd things that do not appear in previous tables.
*As usual the most read stories on the September 11th situation are in Chinese. However, second-place does not go to English. Spanish is in 2nd place in Afghanistan stories.

*There were 270 hits on the PCP's "No to Elections" in French this past month.

*The Massachusetts RAIL page had at least 359 hits. The California RAIL page had only 85 hits in comparison. The DC RAIL page also had 64 hits.