Number Crunching

If you're not aware by now, I love polls and statistics. For example, everyday I check out Gallup online. I love to see trends and how numbers change over time.

Well with Google Analytics, I can gather a lot of information on my visitors (nothing personal or anything I could use against anyone). I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss. I have a lot of data, and I'm willing to share some of it for those who might just be curious of the trends that exist among my blog visitors. I have taken measurements over a span of 7 days to gather this data. All the data has a +/- 8.7% margin of error.

What's the most popular web browser? This one surprised me a little. It's actually split even between Internet Explorer and Firefox! 46.6% use Internet Explorer and 46.6% use Firefox. I thought perhaps Internet Explorer would have a slight lead, but that's not the case here. Keep in mind however that Firefox is more popular among younger people.

How about operating systems? It should be no surprise that Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system. 88.6% use Windows, while 7.6% use Macintosh. Just 3.1% use Linux. If we were to break down Windows into versions, 90.5% use Windows XP. I figured there would be more Windows 2000 users than there were -- 3.5% for that group. Just 4.3% use Windows 98.

What are the internet connection trends? If you're one of those people who believe dial-up is out of the loop in this time of broadband, you're wrong! This very closely reflects national statistics with 26.0% still using dial-up. Still a majority (60.3%) use cable or DSL.

And last, what are the trends by country? It's probably no surprise to you that a majority of my visitors are from the United States (55.0%). The United Kingdom comes in second with 9.9%. Italy is our third place winner with 9.2%. On down the line is France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Canada, Austria, and so on.