World’s most popular websites… China’s happy capitalists… Mobile dollars… Taming the frizz… Time and mummy…

The world’s top 10 most popular websites

The fastest-growing web brand by unique visitors is online product review site Ciao, which grew 31% during May, to record almost 30 million unique visitors, according to research by comScore’s World Metrix service reported in Marketing Charts.

Social networking site Facebook was the next best mover, its 47 million-plus visitors for the month representing a 22.8% improvement and making it the single biggest site among the 10 fastest growers.

Top 10 fastest-growing web brands by unique visitors:

1. Ciao sites
2. Facebook
3. Mozilla
4. Priceline.com
5. Karstadt-Quelle
6. Photobucket
7. Deutsche Telekom
8. Metacafe
9. Dailymotion.com
10. Verizon Communications

Google is the most popular website brand in the world, reaching almost 70% of internet users. The search engine had more than 536 million unique visitors in April 2007, the researchers found. Next most popular were the Microsoft matrix of sites (including NineMSN in Australia) with more than 528 million, Yahoo! with close to 470 million, TimeWarner on almost 267 million and eBay on close to 259 million.

Top 10 webs brands by unique visitors

1. Google
2. Microsoft sites
3. Yahoo!
4. Time Warner network
5. eBay
6. Wikipedia
7. Fox Interactive media
8. Amazon.com
9. CNET Networks
10. Apple

The fastest-growing property in the top 10 most-visited sites was Apple, which moved into number 10 spot in April 2007 after its total worldwide visitation grew 5% to more than 120 million.

China reds happy capitalists

Nearly three million members of China’s ruling Communist Party were working in private business last year and 810,000 were self-employed, according to the China Daily.

Mobile dollars

Access Economics has done its sums and come up with a number to quantify the efficiency that mobile communications bring business. Almost 40% of men and 11% of women use mobiles for work. Mobiles have added $5.8 billion to economic growth in 2005-06.

Frizzy hair emergencies solved for just $2

It takes a lot or work to make curly go hair go straight, so much so that it is often the sort of high-maintenance fashion measure that is only done when preparing for a night out on the town. Even after they have spent all that time with the hot tongs, however, the curly-haired still face a very real threat: humidity, common in bars and clubs chocablok with boogying bodies, can undo all that hard straightening work in two minutes flat.

Fortunately, according to Thecoolhunter, the Beautiful Vending Company has come up with a business venture that could save the day: coin-operated hair-straightening hot irons, for the quick and convenient use of club patrons whose hair has suddenly gone ‘poof’.

For $2 in the slot, users get two-minutes of the professional grade tongs. The vending machines have just arrived in several night clubs around Australia, including the Ruby Rabbit and Martin Place Bar in Sydney and Two Floors and Cushion Lounge in Melbourne. Thank goodness for that.

Time and mummy

Mothers who work full-time have worse health, suffer more psychological distress and poorer-quality relationships with their partners than mothers working part-time. This is one of the findings of research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies and other institutions on child development. Researchers studied 10,000 children and their families in a project that started in 2004.

The research results, reported in the Australian newspaper, may not surprise many parents but one of the other findings might: A third of families where both parents work do not use any formal childcare. Parents schedule their hours so that one is available to care for the child while the other is working. Sounds like hard work.

And mothers and fathers who are permanently employed show better wellbeing on most indicators compared with casual and self-employed parents.