Everybody who starts their own site usually sets up a counter to see how many visits they are getting. If the site is popular, it's a good motivational element. Though it could also be a turn off if they see they are only getting 1-2 visits per day.
For those of you who don't know, I have another blog and in both that blog and this one, I'm using Google Analytics to count visits to my blog. Similarly, I'm using FeedBurner to count how many people are subscribing to my blog.
Anyway, back to Google Analytics. It's a pretty nifty tool for those of you who have a blog / own a website. 
It not only gives you the number of users to hit your site, but also some demographics like: browser, operating system, country, etc. The most surprising result yet? Firefox is the most popular browser for this blog!
Almost 60% of my visitors use Firefox while only about 40% use IE! In my other, personal, blog the pattern is completely different: 60% use IE vs 34% Firefox (Safari is also popular).
Looking at operating systems, it's the same story. On this blog, it's about 80% Microsoft Windows vs 20% other (Mac and Linux). On my personal blog, it's 90% Windows vs 10% other.
So what's the deal? Does this indicate that users that are pro-social software tend to be more tech savvy and, thus, know better than to use Microsoft technologies ? Or am I going too far ? 
Note: This data covers the period from June 2, 2008 - July 7, 2008.
Results on my blog are similar, as is true for a number of other blogs I read. For sure, Firefox is much more of a geek's tool than mainstream, and those who can choose their browser, mostly seem to have chosen it. But the market at large looks pretty different.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to look at the subset of those coming to your blog via Google referrers and the browsers they use, vs. those who are directly or organically reading it.
I don't think you are far from the truth. Good data you have there. I don't think that are simply anti-Microsoft, but are more tech-savvy and knowledgeable of the best tools and technologies out there. They know they have other options besides IE...and those are the same people that have a greater awareness of social tools and the latest of the web.
ReplyDeleteHi Ed,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Google doesn't provide that kind of reporting :(. But the point still stands, does that mean that 'geeks' are anti-Microsoft ?? :)
Chica,
You seem to agree with Ed. Seems like your conclusion is: Tech-savvy people know better than to choose Microsoft solutions.