A Blogger's Recap of 2011 (Stat-wise)
Ah, January. Time for the annual "Parade of the Stats" and blogs all over the interwebs, and here at mikeymo's place, we are no different! (OK, so "We" is "me," but, whatever...)
So, shortening last year's format, the top five posts of the year are...
The browser wars sorted out pretty much the same, 40.52% on Firefox, 28.46% on Chrome, 17.45% on IE (people still use that?) and 9.47% on Safari. OS-wise it was 59% Windows, 24% Linux and 12% Mac.
Mobile was bigger this year. Last year it was barely a blip on the radar, but this year 3% of my visitors came from mobile devices. (Glad I have a mobile-friendly theme) Android just edged out iOS as the mobile platform of choice. (Froyo winning there). I expect tablets and iPads to take a bigger share next year.
As expected, a little over half the visitors were from the U.S. with the U.K. and Canada rounding out the top three. Surprisingly, India usurped Australia for the four-hole, maybe in part due to this post on an Indian worship blog. What surprised me more was that my home state fell from first to third in visits for the first time ever. Either I'm getting more of a reach (with my rockin' Klout score of 48 at the end of the year) or people at home are just bored of me. Probably that. But thank you California (top region) and London (top city) for your support.
Top (non-search) referrals: for the second year in a row, The Worship Community is king, with the Ancient Mariner, Fred McKinnon, OurRisingSound and Alistair Vance capping off the top five.
And finally, as far as keywords go, the unsurprising top queries are all variations on "Ubuntu Studio Review," "Ubuntu Studio 11.04" and the like. Apparently I'm quite the expert. And once again, Erasmus Mutanbira shows up high in search queries. Disappointingly, there were no weird keywords in the forst 500 results, although down at number 480, Google thought I had the answer to "is there any nudity in Thor?"
Huh?
So, shortening last year's format, the top five posts of the year are...
- Ubuntu Studio 11.04 First Look Review
- Album Review: David Crowder* Band - Oh For Joy
- Spiritual Gifts: Use 'em or Lose 'em (Sermon Notes)
- Ubuntu 11.10 First Look (Oneiric Ocelot)
- DVD Review - Brian Doerksen: Level Ground
The browser wars sorted out pretty much the same, 40.52% on Firefox, 28.46% on Chrome, 17.45% on IE (people still use that?) and 9.47% on Safari. OS-wise it was 59% Windows, 24% Linux and 12% Mac.
Mobile was bigger this year. Last year it was barely a blip on the radar, but this year 3% of my visitors came from mobile devices. (Glad I have a mobile-friendly theme) Android just edged out iOS as the mobile platform of choice. (Froyo winning there). I expect tablets and iPads to take a bigger share next year.
As expected, a little over half the visitors were from the U.S. with the U.K. and Canada rounding out the top three. Surprisingly, India usurped Australia for the four-hole, maybe in part due to this post on an Indian worship blog. What surprised me more was that my home state fell from first to third in visits for the first time ever. Either I'm getting more of a reach (with my rockin' Klout score of 48 at the end of the year) or people at home are just bored of me. Probably that. But thank you California (top region) and London (top city) for your support.
Top (non-search) referrals: for the second year in a row, The Worship Community is king, with the Ancient Mariner, Fred McKinnon, OurRisingSound and Alistair Vance capping off the top five.
And finally, as far as keywords go, the unsurprising top queries are all variations on "Ubuntu Studio Review," "Ubuntu Studio 11.04" and the like. Apparently I'm quite the expert. And once again, Erasmus Mutanbira shows up high in search queries. Disappointingly, there were no weird keywords in the forst 500 results, although down at number 480, Google thought I had the answer to "is there any nudity in Thor?"
Huh?
I'm fascinated by some of the differences in our readership.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of browsers, there's a pretty even split in my top three, with Safari (27%) just ahead of Firefox (25%), then Chrome (19%) edging out IE (18%). In terms of OS, it's 50% Windows, 33% Mac and 12% iOS.
Mobile is pretty big for me, accounting for just under 20% of readers; most of whom are using iOS devices.
The two most fascinating trends for me where that referrals from Facebook were way up - 9% of incoming links! And, 4.5% of my readers are using Safari on an iPad, which has implications for the blog design!
As you pointed out, it's all about readership. I obviously have a pretty high mix of Linux users, and many of those guys would rather have their fingernails pulled off than buy an Apple product or use Safari. You probably have a lot of musicians and photographers, who tend to me more Mac-ish.
ReplyDeleteThe Android thing doesn't surprise me either; 'droid is more popular than iOS across the board, and I probably have a more general readership. What's odd is that Google Analytics seems to have a hard time parsing different iOS products. Sorting by device it seems to favor iPads, sorting by OS it seems to favor iPhones. Of course, Android devices are a more broad category, so there are many devices, but the Droid2 and Acer Iconia are the top devices there. I expect as people move to the tablet form factor for consumption, mobile is going to become very significant.
Interestingly, when I visit my blog on my Froyo phone, it goes to the mobile theme; on my Honeycomb tablet, it goes to the full site by default. I wonder if iPhones and iPads treat it differently as well.
Yes, on the iPad it will go to full site theme, which does make some fashionably wide themes hard to read.
ReplyDeleteThe Android popularity may be regional. Here in Asia, Android is growing, but in a lot of markets it is playing catchup to iPhones (HTC is still the leader of the pack). The big trend in the past year has been people, especially corporate types, switching from Blackberry (which was totally dominant three years ago) to iPhone. In terms of the English-speaking Asian audience - iOS is king.
And, my readership has always been Mac-centric. It was actually worse a year ago. In the past 9 months the average daily visits have doubled and now I have a lot more Windows readers - which I guess is to be expected.
It is fascinating how vocations shape tech expectations. For example, a lot of coders and designers I know have large laptops, either Mac or PC. But, almost every photographer I know uses a 13inch MacBook Pro.
Interesting. The latest report I read was that Android's market share was higher worldwide than in the US, and higher still in Asia. One analysis showed Android likely to get 52% of the Asian smartphone market by the end of 2011; it would be interesting to see what the numbers panned out to be.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen where the numbers fall along economic lines, however. It would be interesting to see if one or the other dominates as income moves up or down. We have the full boat in our household; computers of all three OS's, Androids and iPhones, iPod Touches, an Android tab and a Kindle fire. My daughter just dumped her Blackberry for an iPhone.
I know some photographers who use 15 inch MacBooks, but I know the 13s are popular as well. (my daughter has one)
Interesting stats. I'm sure that some of the differences are reflected in the different fashion drivers, with Apple products seen as desirable in Asia for their design, while in North America and Europe Android is becoming desirable (in some quarters*) for not being closed-source.
ReplyDeleteToday I answered a questionnaire from Sigma-Aldrich-Fluka about use of QR barcodes and hand held devices. The questions implied to me they are expecting a big upswing in usage and trying to decide how best to direct their development efforts to provide info for these devices.
*I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks on Diaspora, and this new social network is dominated right now by arty, 'ethical' and sometimes aggressively atheist geeks with a lot of influence from the occupy movement. Over there Apple is considered even more poisonous than Microsoft, and if these people are indicative of how western teens and 20s are starting to think then it is likely both companies will see erosion of market share. Having said that, linux users outside of mobile devices account for less than 2% of the OS market, so the number of users is going to have to increase enormously before it makes a real difference. However I suspect that as the blogosphere shrinks then you'll find the more intellectual and interested users will tend to be from this smaller group (as your figures indicate, Mike) with the masses just sticking to facebook/G+ and other mass-appeal sites.
I agree with you 100%, Toni.
ReplyDeleteCanonical has really been flying the banner for Linux and appears to be upping the ante a bit in 2012. They've been shopping around their "Ubuntu TV" product for manufacturing partners, and unveiled it at CES this month. They are actually way ahead of Apple, Google and Microsoft in this area - a full-blown OS ready to go for a smart TV. Your TV as a central hub connecting your devices, streaming services, and cloud storage all wrapped up in a nifty Unity desktop experience.
If they can get a manufacturer to bite on it and get any traction, they might find a bigger market for Ubuntu in general.
Fascinating conversation guys.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Toni's assessment there. Form & fashion are everything here in Asia. Android is gaining as people dump RIM/Blackberry. But, for a long time, Android was only popular amongst the seriously tech-oriented minority.
As for TV, my feeling is that the "winner" will be who negotiates content. I'll put it like this - whomever wins the rights to put the English Premier League through their box, will win in Asia. Right now Apple TV is gaining ground not because it's the best box out there, but because of the iTunes ecology behind it.
Having said all that, I'm fascinated by Toni's comment about the shrinking blogosphere. The way I see it, the number of blogs is growing, but the number of blogs with meaningfully original content is shrinking. My numbers have gone up a lot in the past year, especially the past six months even though I'm doing everything wrong, according to the experts and probloggers. There's must be a deficit in compelling writing out there.
Intriguing info...reminded me to look up my blog's stats too.
ReplyDeleteBlessed new year to you :)
Well, I have been slacking off... :)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, measuring the size of the blogosphere is next to impossible. Technorati and others attempt to look at the major platforms and extrapolate, but to define what an "active" blog is very difficult. There are blogs that come up high in search results, but haven't had active content for years. But if they are getting traffic and links, are they "active?" Many so-called "blogs" are simply automated link farms, and sites like paper.li are feeding into that. Why generate content when you can simply scrape content?
More and more people are using WordPress to build static sites - do those count as "blogs" because WP counts them as an install?
Yeah, I think there is a lot less good content out there. Yeah, I think the blogosphere in general is a huge echo chamber - same content in multiple places.
Funny, I look at the three of us (Fern, Toni, and myself) and see three completely different types of bloggers. Fern tends to focus on particular areas and really craft his posts, I tend to write about what's on my mind that day in a helpful way, and Toni often just posts whatever is going on at the moment, even if it is one sentence. I find all of that valuable and enjoyable.
And I completely agree, Fern - content is king. The studios and networks have finally figured that out. Let's hope they are more forward-thinking in their approach to online content than the recording industry has been.
Thanks for the comment, and thanks for including me in your list!
ReplyDelete