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copied!<h3>Video game category</h3> <p><a href="http://vgchartz.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">vgchartz.com</a> have various charts for video game titles and hardware performance.</p> <p>Sample queries:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://vgchartz.com/worldtotals.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Worldwide total sales of video game titles of all time</a></li> <li><a href="http://vgchartz.com/hwtable.php?cons%5B%5D=Wii&cons%5B%5D=PS3&cons%5B%5D=X360&reg%5B%5D=America&reg%5B%5D=Japan&reg%5B%5D=UK&reg%5B%5D=Australia&start=40188&end=40321" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Hardware sales between 01/03/2010 to 05/22/2010: Wii-PS3-X360 in America, Japan, UK, Australia</a></li> </ul> <p>There's enough data for questions like:</p> <ul> <li>How many hardware/title X were sold in Year Y/first week of sales?</li> <li>Title X outsells Title Y (in their respective first N weeks of sales) by how much/what ratio?</li> </ul> <hr> <h3>Popular music category</h3> <p><a href="http://www.billboard.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">billboard.com</a> is all you need.</p> <h3>Wikipedia links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_charts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Billboard charts</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Billboard Hot 100</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_200" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Billboard 200</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100_50th_Anniversary_Charts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-charting_U.S._music_artists" rel="nofollow noreferrer">List of best-charting U.S. music artists</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists" rel="nofollow noreferrer">List of best-selling music artists</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best-selling_albums_in_the_United_States_since_Nielsen_SoundScan_tracking_began" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Best-selling albums in the United States since Nielsen SoundScan tracking began</a></li> </ul> <p>In addition to sales figures, you can also ask queries about chart positions, e.g.:</p> <ul> <li>In Category Y of Chart Z, where does song X place/how many songs does artist X have?</li> </ul> <hr> <h3>Making the most out of your data</h3> <p>You can make unambiguous numeric Q/A out of most lists. Take for example, a list like <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1951793,00.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TIME.com All Time 100 Novels</a></p> <p>Some generic questions that can be asked are:</p> <ul> <li>How many are written in a given time period? <ul> <li>Decade, year, in the presidency of George Bush, before 9/11, etc.</li> </ul></li> <li>What's the gap in rank between Title X and Title Y? <ul> <li>Pairwise queries like this really make the most of your data!</li> </ul></li> </ul> <p>You can do this with any given Top 100 lists:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Time 100</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100:_The_Most_Important_People_of_the_Century" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo%27s_100_Greatest_TV_Characters" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Bravo's 100 Greatest TV Characters</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_Guide%27s_100_Greatest_Episodes_of_All_Time" rel="nofollow noreferrer">TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time</a></li> <li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-watched_television_broadcasts" rel="nofollow noreferrer">List of most-watched television broadcasts</a></li> </ul> <hr> <h3>History category</h3> <p><a href="http://www.historyorb.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">historyorb.com</a> is just one example. The URLs and HTMLs are very scrape-friendly.</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.historyorb.com/birthdays-on-this-day.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Calendar of Famous Birthdays</a>, <a href="http://www.historyorb.com/deaths-on-this-day.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Deaths</a>, <a href="http://www.historyorb.com/events-on-this-day.php" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Events</a></li> </ul> <p>There are many similar sites, e.g. <a href="http://www.brainyhistory.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">brainyhistory.com</a>.</p> <p>You can also use these dates to "cross" with the other data (e.g. the Top 100 Novels example above).</p> <hr> <h3>Movie category</h3> <p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Internet Movie Database</a> is of course... <em>the</em> internet movie database!</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/rentalscalendar" rel="nofollow noreferrer">IMDb/USA Video Rentals Archive Calendar</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide" rel="nofollow noreferrer">All-Time World Wide Box Office</a> <ul> <li>"How much do Movie X, Y, Z gross in total?"</li> </ul></li> <li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/interfaces" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The plain text data files</a> (available via FTP, read <a href="http://www.imdb.com/Copyright" rel="nofollow noreferrer">copyright/license</a>)</li> </ul>

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