Another Aussie fan soaks up the sun and news of her beloved Dragons

The Hong Kong Dragons website has registered its 500,000th hit just hours before the end of 2006.

Since taking the internet in particular, and sport in general, by storm, the Dragons website - a compelling mix of riveting sports news and irreverant wit - has lured in more than 10,000 separate visits from almost 6,000 different computer terminals in more than 50 countries (amassing 503,000 hits or 233,000 page views).

December marked the first time Australian readership of the site represented more than a third of the team's hometown audience figures. A quarter of all the 40,000 hits came from Down Under.

December was shaping up as a blockbuster month as viewers from around the world tuned in to the team's Shanghai heroics (and revisited past campaigns on hostile territory courtesy of the recently added Manila tour photo gallery). But from the weekend of December 16, traffic slowed to a crawl as punters turned their attention to the Xmas break and the Ashes whitewash quest).

Now to the monthly top 10 (which, as usual, omits Hong Kong and Australia). Canada took a big slide from second place to tenth, while Japan slipped from ninth to 20th. Germany was the big mover in the charts, soaring from 32nd on the list in November to fourth a month later. Euroskeptics were further belittled by the added strong performance from Holland and France.

TOP TEN READERSHIP BY NATION
November top 10......................December
United States...............................United States
Canada........................................Singapore
Thailand.......................................China
Great Britain................................Germany
China............................................Great Britain
Netherlands.................................Thailand
Singapore....................................Philippines
Slovenia.......................................Netherlands
Japan...........................................France
Philippines....................................Canada

In other trends, Thursday was narrowly the most popluar day of the week for visits, with a noticeable lull on Wednesday. Peak hours were 12-2pm and 6pm and 1am, as our unwaiveringly loyal US readers came on stream.

And last but not least, kudos to the 12 people who took a lot at the site on Christmas Day, perhaps unsurprisingly the quietest day in terms of total traffic all year. New Year's Eve traffic was pretty much usual for a Sunday with 31 people tuning in around the world and, thankfully, pushing us over the 500,000 hit mark.

Craig 'Bogan' Francis