Mobile Accounts for 12.5% of Visits... and Other Interesting Stats From this Blog

Every so often I like to dig into this blog's traffic and see what it reveals. This time I was sparked by a Quora conversation about how bloggers use Google Analytics. I looked at traffic from the last 30 days and since January 1st.

Three things jump out:

1. 12.5% of my readership is now via mobile devices. That is up from 8% since January 1st. Considering its a content blog, 12.5% is a large amount and it represents a +50% gain.

2. Chrome has emerged as the #2 browser after a significant gain (25% from 18%). Meanwhile, Firefox and Internet Explorer both lost share (37% to 34% and 20% to 17%).

3. For Mobile usage, the iPhone and iPad are the clear #1 and #2. Amazingly, the iPad now accounts for 26% of all mobile visits. It has clearly eaten into the iPhone (which fell from 63% to 58%). Android has been relatively stable - 8% of visits over the last 30 days and 7% since Jan 1.

Of course this is biased data (from a tech blog) from a relatively small sample size (10,000+ monthly uniques).

Blown Away By Google Chrome: Firefox, Safari and Me (!)

More to come... but I am blown away by Google's new web browser, Chrome.

It's lightning fast. Blows Firefox, IE7, and Safari out of the water. Not even close.

It's slick. The UI is clean and there are tons of tiny enhancements like website thumbnails, most visited pages, etc.

The transition is simple. I hate installing new browsers because there is typically a big switching cost (namely, time). Chrome inherits all of my Firefox preferences (including quick searches) and makes the transition to the new browser seamless.

I have a new starting browser. And I didn't expect to say that at all!