LaListaWIP is an interesting site that shows the popularity of different VIPs from sports, arts, culture, politics, etc., based in the number of Web pages, links and news that reference them on Internet. The site also allows the VIP popularity to be ranked based on categories, countries and regions. Another option is to directly compare the popularity of up to five VIPs - the “cara a cara” (face-to-face) option. Alas, the site is only in Spanish - although it is very easy and intuitive to navigate though its pages.

For example, click here to see a comparison of some of the most popular Brazilian Formula 1 drivers: Ayrton Senna, Nelson Piquet, Emerson Fittipaldi, Rubens Barrichello and Felipe Massa. Naturally, “younger” VIPs appear more than “older” ones. Thus, we see that Maradona “wins” against Pelé, as well as Fernando Alonso “beats” Ayrton Senna. This is expected, because nowadays there are many more sites, blogs and news on Alonso than Senna.

The site has some mistakes though, like, for example, listing composer Baden Powell as one of the 20 most popular brazilian VIPs, with 1.4 million Internet links - that’s hardly the case. Incidentally, this is exactly the same number of pages that Google returns when we look for Baden Powell. However, most of those pages actually refer to another Baden Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts, not the Brazilian musician. Another problem: singer and guitarist João Gilberto is not included among the 10 most popular VIPs in Bahia, although he has 381 mil references according to the site. What’s more: if we we google “João Gilberto”, we get 831mil pages, more than twice the references he has according to LaListaWIP.

By the way, I’d like to know the exact logic behind the number of references that they calculate: in many cases, their number are exactly the same ones as Google’s. In other cases, it’s exactly the opposite. Another example: searching for “Xuxa”, the site displays two options: “Xuxa - actress” and “Xuxa Lopes - actress”. When we choose “Xuxa - actress” (who, since she’s ranked better than the other, we expect to be Xuxa Meneghel, one of the most famous people in Brazil), the site doesn’t show any other information but her age - 45 years old. Well, that’s exactly Xuxa’s age, so that’s probably her. But LaListaWIP says that she has only 80,000 Web references! If we google Xuxa, we get… er… 2.9 million pages, most of them referring to Xuxa herself.

Well, despite those mistakes, it’s worth visiting LaListaWIP just for the sake of curiosity, to compare who is the “most popular” VIP: Ronaldinho or Zidane, Lula or FHC, Gisele Bündchen or Marisa Monte. Take also a look at “Brazil Top 100 “ and “Bahia Top 100.

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