NWN Readers by Operating System: 26% Mac Users, 1.25% Linux (Probably True of Second Life User Base Too)

The Google Analytics chart above lists the readership of New World Notes, based on the operating system and browser you use. Over 1 in 4 of you are Mac users, which is significantly higher than average (total Mac OS market share is less than 5%), with Linux users slightly higher than average (1.25% of NWN readers, .95%, among all operating systems.) According to surveys I've conducted, nearly all of this blog's regular readership are active Second Life users, so this spread of operating systems is probably representative of SL's user base in general. (To my knowledge, the Lindens haven't published data on Resident operating systems, and if that's the case, this will have to do for now.) Much thanks to Troy McConaghy, who suggested that I look to Google Analytics for this OS info, after Opensource Obscure posed the question in an NWN forum thread.

Comments

[Scarp Godenot]

Interesting to see that Chrome is already over half as many as Internet Explorer here.

Chrome truly is faster, and having each tab threaded separately is such a great thing, truly.

[radar]

A large portion of Mac users tend to be early adopters who get new technology. So this isn't surprising. It does point out that LL's plan of implementing things like shadows for windows only, if indeed that's what Tom Hale meant to say, is kind of stupid.

BTW, I think the overall market share is higher than 5% now though. It's still small. But to be honest, I hope it never gets much above 10%. Apple makes better products when they don't rule the roost. And most PC buyers purchase on price and "good enough" user experience, so I don't see Apple ever having much more than 10% at best anyway. And that's fine with me. Even if LL does decide to forget we exist, I'd rather have to quit using SL than OS X.

[Hamlet Au]

Haha, cool.

"Interesting to see that Chrome is already over half as many as Internet Explorer here."

Very good point, Chrome is still very small, market-wise. So more proof NWN/SLers are early adopters! I totally love Chrome myself, way more than IE and a few notches more than FF.

[radar]

One more related comment, interesting numbers on market share by home:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/10/05/apple_takes_double_digit_home_pc_market_share_study.html

[Samantha Poindexter]

"According to surveys I've conducted, nearly all of this blog's regular readership are active Second Life users, so this spread of operating systems is probably representative of SL's user base in general."

If the surveys indicated that nearly all active Second Life users were among this blog's regular readership, that would hold up. As it stands, there's a fairly obvious fallacy here...

[Hamlet Au]

To be sure, Samantha, it's a sample of a sample, but because NWN is a general interest SL blog, I think it's a fair assumption to say it has a readership that's mostly representative.

[Samantha Poindexter]

My suspicion -- and I may well be wrong -- is that the sample here is heavily skewed toward SL's earlier adopters. More recent residents, who make up the vast majority of people now in SL, barely know LL's official blog exists, let alone any other blogs...

[Samantha Poindexter]

(Well, "any other blogs" may be a slight exaggeration. But I think it's likely NWN has a following among earlier Residents as a tentpole of the SL blogosphere -- to mix my metaphors -- to which newer Residents are more likely oblivious.)

[soror nishi]

it is interesting, whether or not it is completely representative, and hopefully help, though I know that is optimistic. That Blue Mars cut us out of the whole start-up procedure is very short-sighted and lets hope LL continues to value our input.

[Hamlet Au]

"the sample here is heavily skewed toward SL's earlier adopters"

I'm not sure, Samantha, this specific blog didn't start as an independent site until 2006, when the hype really started. You're definitely right that there's a lot of community who don't read my blog, or any others. Even LL's blog doesn't garner traffic commensurate to the SL user base.

[Designer Lingerie]

A very clever idea, will implement it as soon as possible. Keep up the good work. Very good post. It really helped me a lot, will be referring a lot of friends about this.