Dear All -
World Startup Report team here. There have been many repeated questions in this thread, so we compiled all them into a single long answer for everyone.
At World Startup Report, our goal was to show the world how big of an internet company you can build in each country. We have partnered with Startup Genome, as well as worked closely with Startup Digest and Hackers/Founders network to collect all this data.
As we proceeded, we lowered our goal of covering 100 countries to covering 50 since we aimed to find the most reliable (as well as interesting) data. Our methodology included looking at publicly available data (stock market), online publications from sources like Financial Times, TechCrunch, The Next Web, etc. or sometimes even personal conversations with those companies. The definition of internet companies was: no ISPs, no software development houses (unless they have online products they are selling), no hardware companies. If a company is diversified (as was usually the case) we looked at the revenue breakdown and searched for the highest internet-related revenue streams.
However, we do accept the fact that this information is constantly changing (we had to replace a few companies due to various reasons (even bankruptcy) over the course of our month-long research). At the same time, we are aware that there could have been a few omissions and this is the price we are willing to pay to show the public the best available data there is on the web right now.
One last thing, we've put up our raw data on Silk, so you could play around with it as it is easier to visualize it.
http://internet-hall-of-fame.silk.co/explore/table/collectio...
If you'd like to help us make it better, or contribute with information about your country, please contact us at hello@worldstartupreport.com
-- The World Startup Report Team