Browser, monitor colour depth, screen resolution and OS stats

It never ceases to amaze me how often people need reliable statistics on web users’ browsers, monitor colour depths, screen resolutions and operating systems, and yet how difficult it is to get this information.

There is a site which reliably provides such statistics at Statmarket.com (http://www.statmarket.com/ ) but whereas this was once free to access (and spread like wild fire as an indispensable bookmark amongst the web design industry globally), you now have to pay to access the data.

Another site that is used as a source for such information is the Browserwatch section of Internet.com at http://browserwatch.internet.com/stats.html . However, as the site itself explains “this is a representation of browser usage for people who visit BrowserWatch, nothing more, nothing less. But let me tell you a little bit more about the users who frequent BrowserWatch, we have some of the top software developers, web site designers, magazine and newspaper editors and writers and a catch all group I like to call browser.nuts. These are the folks that feel the need to be using the latest and greatest browsers available - period, end of sentence.” This is fine if this is your site’s target market but pretty useless otherwise.

I was recently happy to discover another source of free information which does most of what Statmarket does. It is the WebSnapshot section of the MyComputer.com network which can be found at http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/ There is a really useful monthly report which you can download as a one page PDF which gives you all the key stats at a glance. You still have to pay for historical data (there is a historical data pricing list at http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/pricing_info.html ) but it is not that expensive at around $40 a shot. Details of the data sources for the stats can be found at http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/datasources.html (“data published by WebSnapshot is compiled from millions of visitors to tens of thousands of web sites of all types and sizes…”).

What I would really like access to, however, is this kind of information but such that it can be sliced and diced by a) Global / Country views b) different target market views. Sites should be designed with the target market in mind and the quality (let alone quantity) of data available to aid web designers is very poor. Surely there is a market here for someone? The most obvious people to provide such data are the big online advertising networks as their ad servers will get stats across a huge range of sites and users which can then be easily categorised. No doubt there are legal issues involved…

Anyone else know of other good sites for usage and penetration figures on browsers, monitor colour depths, screen resolutions and operating systems?

>Anyone else know of other good sites for usage and
>penetration figures on browsers, monitor colour depths,
>screen resolutions and operating systems?

Yep...http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2001/January/ has all the following details.
- JavaScript
- Java
- Domains
- OS
- Browsers
- Weekday
- Resolution
- ColorDepth

And its free. For more information about statistics see my posting The Joy of Stats on the Wall at the Revolution Magazine website.

Teddie
Neutralize (*\*)
http://www.neutralize.com

Another valuable site for the web development community has converted from a free advertising based revenue model to a subscription based revenue model. http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com was one of the last standing sites which offered extensive web site statistics, and has now followed the path set by www.statmarket.com to charge for this valuable information.

It appears that the days of free content are wearing thin as advertising revenues are supposedly diminishing and click-through rates are dropping. In a poll that e-consultancy recently ran (http://www.e-consultancy.com/poll/vote.asp?id=6), 50% of the voters said they were willing to pay for content, and only 40% of users said they expect it for free.

Is this new trend of charging for content fueled by the technology failures of last year, the more rigid and realistic approach taken by companies this year to turn a profit, or the hype around the eventual death of the banner. Optimedia's 2001 'Digital and Interactive Estimates' report estimates that that online spend last year was £100m, and for 2001 will be in the region of £201m. Although I am not a huge fan of the banner, I think that with the onset of more offline brands entering the arena of online spending, the banner has still got a an extensive lifespan, and will be evolve to cater for the diminishing click-through rates. Carat has also recently commented on creating a new form of measuring the success of a banner by not just click-thrus but also by the quality of the visitor, i.e. conversion rate to a purchase or registration. This however is not a new idea, ModemMedia was pushing this idea long before the industry would accept it, and CDNow and Amazon have had advertising partner schemes in place for years which reward websites who refer users who make a purchase.

News.com has also recently made some refreshing advances in advertising ideas, and presents advertisements in a magazine styled layout. Content is made to fit around the advertisements, unlike banners. These advertisements give advertisers far more flexibility and potential effectiveness in their communication. Maybe advertising in the future will be all about keeping advertising fresh.

Let's stop pushing the limits of the banner advertisement, and create entirely new forms advertising, allowing the initial motive behind the internet to live; sharing ideas and information in a free platform.