February by the Numbers

February was back down to the new normal with 269 visits. That's nearly 10 unique visitors a day and is probably about all I have any right to expect. It's not like I'm writing brilliant essays on topics of great import.

One big change from January is that I'm no longer posting links on Facebook, so I've lost much of that particular stream of visitors. Obviously that means referrals were down and The Archdruid Report has jumped in as Facebook's replacement in first place due to track-backs and comments I've left there.

Microsoft continues to dominate the operating systems used by visitors here with XP still claiming over 50%. All Windows versions combined tally up to 75.9% of visits. Other was the next-most significant OS at 10%, mostly thanks to whatever Facebook person/bot has been regularly visiting us. Mac, Linux and iPhone account for the rest.

The best word to describe the browser situation is "fragmented," with 16 uniquely identified browsers passing through in February. Grouping them up a bit puts Internet Explorer at 42.3%, Firefox at 28.3%, Chrome at 9% and Safari at 6.3%. Opera, Mozilla 5 and Other make up the rest. The interesting thing to me is the tipping of late in favor of IE over Firefox. I've seen wider surveys that show Firefox losing to Chrome and IE holding steady, but that doesn't appear to be what is happening here. Microsoft may have a bit of a hit on its hands in IE8. Whereas IE6 and 7 were the best thing to ever happen to Firefox, IE8 seems to have hit that "good enough" point that makes it not worth the hassle of downloading and installing something else. At least for the majority of those who come here.

There were several contenders for the Odd Search Term of the Month award in February. "Eyes dilated" and "paddle her ass" came on strong, but ultimately "ich bin license plate" won the day.

And that's enough of that.