Speakola stats — 5 most watched speeches of the week

There are more than 3000 speeches on this site and from Feb 12-18 Speakola had 19,341 page views. These were the five most popular.

Muhammad Ali, the greatest, would be horrified to be at #5!

The most viewed speeches on Speakola tend to have an enduring popularity, and they rise to the top of the metrics week after week. It’s not that they are necessarily the best speeches on the site. It’s often an accident of SEO (search engine optimisation), what’s in the news, significant dates on the calendar, and the fact that movie and TV speech transcripts go a bit better than actual real person speeches. One thing I am proud of is how long people stay on a page. If they come, they tend to read the speech!

Here are the most viewed this week.

1. Kiran Bedi: 'I'm a product of opportunities', A police chief with a difference, Visonary Leadership, TEDWomen - 2010 (1,036 views)

Kiran Bedi was the national junior tennis champion of India as a teenager. This talk is about her parents advice, her career with the police, and introducing educational reform into the prison system. It’s a TED favourite. It’s been the most viewed non TV or film speech on Speakola this year.

Now I'm going to give you a story. It's an Indian story about an Indian woman and her journey. Let me begin with my parents. I'm a product of this visionary mother and father. Many years ago, when I was born in the '50s -- '50s and '60s didn't belong to girls in India. They belonged to boys. They belonged to boys who would join business and inherit business from parents, and girls would be dolled up to get married. My family, in my city, and almost in the country, was unique. We were four of us, not one, and fortunately no boys. We were four girls and no boys. And my parents were part of a landed property family. My father defied his own grandfather, almost to the point of disinheritance, because he decided to educate all four of us. He sent us to one of the best schools in the city and gave us the best education. As I've said, when we're born, we don't choose our parents, and when we go to school, we don't choose our school. Children don't choose a school. They just get the school which parents choose for them. So this is the foundation time which I got. I grew up like this, and so did my other three sisters. And my father used to say at that time, "I'm going to spread all my four daughters in four corners of the world." I don't know if he really meant [that], but it happened. I'm the only one who's left in India. One is a British, another is an American and the third is a Canadian. So we are four of us in four corners of the world. (full speech)

2. Jeff Daniels (written by Aaron Sorkin): 'America is not the greatest country in the world anymore', The Newsroom - 2012 (606 views)

This is a monologue from the first episode of The Newsroom that is perhaps the most famous moment in this Aaron Sorkin penned show. It challenges American exceptionalism, it’s an impressive tirade, and maybe it’s the rest of the world that’s tuning in to hear it? Or some self-flagellating Americans who have heard of the rest of the world!

And you—sorority girl—yeah—just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about?! Yosemite?!!! (full speech)

Go paid and you can check out the other three … spoiler alert, Denzel, APJ Abdul Kalam and ‘The Greatest’. Thanks to everyone who supports the site.