A Stat-shot of LT Readers

By Brian Proffitt
Managing Editor

It’s been a month of introspection on Linux Today, and
after examining the type of content you would prefer to see on
Linux Today, I thought I would take this opportunity to
report back to you who your fellow readers are and what tools they
are using to visit this site.

Now, when you read this, I’m sure some of you are going to say
“wow, browser X really rocks!” or “that operating system
totally kicks butt!”–based on only the numbers that I will be
posting here. So, a huge caveat must be issued: we are a Linux
site. Therefore people who use Linux and open source technology are
bound to come here and visit more than, say, people who have no
such interests. Still, I think it’s an interesting look into who’s
dropping by to visit.

First, let’s go with browsers. In this category, as you would
expect, these percentages–based on number of visits to Linux
Today from Nov. 1 to today–are pretty indicative of an open
source-lovin’ readership:

Top 10 Browser Types (Linux Today)

As you can see, Firefox is right up there, dominating the list.
If you threw in the Mozilla-based stats into one batch, you would
have 82.48 percent of the browser visits into LT coming
from Mozilla-type browsers. The temptation would be, of course, to
say “so much for being dead,” or some other snide comment. But
again, LT is really an open source destination. To
contrast, I gathered a sampling of browser stats from other
Jupitermedia editorial division sites, just to compare. Here, the
numbers are not so Mozilla-friendly:

Top 10 Browser Types (Jupitermedia Sample)

IE, then, is still in the lead, across a broader range of
IT-oriented sites. Mozilla-based browsers are 38.19 percent of the
total. While a near 60-40 split is still pretty good, considering
IE formerly near-complete dominance of the browser field, these
numbers still do not represent the general Internet user populace.
These are visitors to Jupitermedia sites, with more than a passing
interest, usually, in technology issues. I would suspect that
Firefox numbers are lower at more public-oriented domains.

Operating system stats, however, are a bit of a surprise, if you
haven’t been reading Linux Today talkbacks for a
while.

Top 10 Operating Systems (Linux
Today)

The Windows lead isn’t, actually, a surprise. Many times I see
comments from readers that indicate they visit LT while at
work, using the Windows systems their employer provides for them. I
suspect that’s what we’re seeing here. For comparison, here are the
Jupitermedia figures:

Top 10 Operating Systems (Jupitermedia)

Linux is not running so high here, though curiously higher than
the Mac systems. In all fairness, I suspect this is because
Jupitermedia doesn’t have a large Mac technology site presence, and
Linux Today is a highly visited site in our editorial
division.

There is no real revelation to these browser and OS numbers. As
I wrote earlier, I think its interesting in and of itself to see
what everyone is using while visiting Linux Today and
other technology-related sites. I will not go out and venture that
there is any kind of trend out in the rest of the world–you can
draw your own conclusions from these figures.

One of the things I really love to see is where everyone is
visiting from. Here are the top 10 countries visitors to Linux
Today are surfing in from:

Top 10 Visiting Nations (Linux
Today)

Within the US, the top 10 visiting states break down like
so:

Top 10 Visiting US States (Linux
Today)

I’d known that California readership was pretty high. The Texas
numbers surprised me a little bit, though looking at the numbers
coming out of Houston, Austin, and Dallas explains a lot.

Finally, which cities’ residents visit Linux Today the
most? I leave you with the top 10 world and US cities visiting this
site (my own hometown ranked 298th in the world, just to show I’m
not stuffing the ballot box too much):

Top 10 Visiting Cities (Linux
Today)