We have just updated our CIA World Factbook stats, making use of the December 18 version.

But at NationMaster, we don't just use the latest Factbook, but all the other ones going back to 2003. So you can compare time series information with ease, for example, graph the growth of the Chinese internet users.

Today I'm pleased announce a sizable update!

This time it's a mix of updates and entirely new stats. We now have population figures updated for 2008.

We have a raft of updated media stats: we have radios, TV's, newspapers. Did you know that Chinese newspapers have a circulation of 76 million? Or that Amenia has a cinema seat for every 20 people?

And new to NationMaster, books broken down by genre. See who's producing the most titles in areas such as religion, literature, arts and science.

Our tourism stats are getting comprehensive too. We can now tell you the destinations favoured by Africans, Southern Asians or Europeans.

Keep checking back. We have a lot more in the works over the next month.

Due to ongoing growth, we are now hiring for full time web developers. If you'd like to work on NationMaster and other free research sites, we would love to hear from you.

We are honoured to be listed among Australia's best web 2.0 applications this week. Ross Dawson produced a list for the prestigious Business Review Weekly showing our most internationally successful, innovative sites.

Two of our sites, FactBites and NationMaster, made the grade.

Geoff Evason put together a list ranking according to Quantcast traffic data alone. The list seems to have disappeared though, so I've reproduced it myself:

1. 1134 retailmenot.com
2. 6423 bugmenot.com
3. 18686 nationmaster.com
4. 41362 uvouch.com
5. 48887 minti.com
6. 53051 redbubble.com
7. 74603 atlassian.com
8. 76818 mebeam.com
9. 87651 spyk.com
10. 129624 swapace.com
11. 148185 blocklayer.com
12. 165573 fwditon.com
13. 195584 inthemix.com.au
14. 199477 globalsurfari.com
15. 203200 pikistrips.com
16. 222399 rememberthemilk.com
17. 280084 rocketreader.com
18. 332987 factbites.com
19. 426879 mig33.com
20. 522232 blogarate.com

THe middle column is rank according to Feb08 Quantcast data. This puts us in 3rd and 18th places. No matter how you cut it, Rapid Intelligence is one of Australia's top independent publishers.

Our undying mission is to make our stats as accessible as possible, no easy task when there's over 8000 of them.

So that's why we've recently been paying a lot of attention to search. We've just unveiled an update that finds what you're after, more quickly and more accurately than ever before.

It might look the same but inside it's much smarter. Give it a go! Top center of every page.

Feedback always welcome.

Luke.