As the 2009 year comes to a close I thought I’d spend some time looking at the past before I look to the future. We’ll do a quick rundown on how things are going at GeekTonic. We’ll cover a few stats for the statisticians, talk about the focus of content for the blog and finally run through the most read topics of the past year.
Stats – Things Continue to Look Up
More than 1,493,000 Pageviews with a steady number of over 100,000 pageviews each month from February through December. The trend has actually been positive in the past six months as well for both unique visitors and returning visitors.
The most popular referring sites included Google (of course), Stumbleupon, ZatzNotFunny, SageTV Forums, EngadgetHD, Consumerist, MissingRemote, Snapstream, GreenButton, avsforum, Lifehacker and delicious.
The most popular search engines used to find GeekTonic were Google, Yahoo and Bing in that order. Google wins this battle with ease cornerning nearly 82% of all search traffic.
The top web browsers were Firefox (50%, Internet Explorer 33%, Safari 8% and Chrome 6%.
Countries Represented - GeekTonic visitors came mostly from the US 73%, Canada 7%, UK 5%, Austrailia 2% and Europe filling out most of the rest, but its always surprising to see that over 200 countries had visitors at GeekTonic.
I won’t bore you with more details, but going through the blog stats I also learned that GeekTonic readers are a loyal bunch and visit the site multiple times – even in one month. Thanks for that loyalty – I hope to continue to make it worth your while.
Topics Covered
Topic-wise the blog will continue to bring you the things I think you’ve come here for in the first place:
1. HTPC – home theater PC’s are a passion of mine and I’ll continue to focus on them. SageTV is still what I use day in and day out, but I’m also dabbling with XBMC, Windows 7 Media Center, Boxee among others. I know HTPCs and I really enjoy covering them.
2. Media – TV updates (U.S. and Canada only) will continue to have front-and-center coverage here. I won’t review shows much, but I’ll continue to offer the weekly updates on new show premieres, specials, finale’s and cancellations as well as the full guides to each new TV season as those continue to be popular. I might on occasion cover other media topics such as movies, music, books etc – all digital of course.
3. e-Readers – I’m very interested in e-Readers as the devices improve. I think we are in the beginning of something important here – a shift in the way we consume books, magazines and newspapers. The Kindles in our home will continue to be covered as will new devices such as the Nook, Que and other e-Readers
4. Media Gadgets – This is a bit of a catch-all, but GeekTonic will cover those media gadgets that interest us and therefore make for good reading. Yes, the focus continues to be on HTPCs, media players and e-Readers, but we’re not excusive in that way. Watch for more on the things that interest you and me.
5. Everything Else – It looks like we might have a regular guest blogger here at GeekTonic. You know her from her reviews of the Kindle and Nook – she goes by the name Mrs GeekTonic on Twitter. Her focus will be on technology also with the occasional discussion of Tech in Schools & Education.
The main thing that keeps me from covering more is my time. Because of this, I really enjoy reader-submitted articles which also add a different perspective that is often shared by GeekTonic readers. You’ll note that two of the top articles from 2009 on GeekTonic were guest posts from readers just like you.
Most Read Articles on GeekTonic in 2009:
Media Center Plugin Brings Netflix Hulu and more Online Video via PlayIt – The MediaCenter fans were pretty excited to get Netflix, Hulu and other online video support.
Transform Your AppleTV with Boxee – Boxee made a huge splash – in large part because of Hulu support built in at the time
SageTV Ultimate Guide – A continually updated guide on all things SageTV (HTPC) is a very popular post here at GeekTonic
Hauppauge HD-PVR on Media Center Arrives – Media Center fans get to use the Hauppauge HD-PVR albeit with a hack and extra paid software.
KindleTips - Ultimate Kindle 2 Shortcuts and Tricks – Kindle tips & tricks including keyboard shortcuts
SageTV HD200 HD Theater GeekTonic Review – The HD Theater from SageTV continues to fly under the radar of the big media. I guess they just don’t understand it, but that’s what keeps folks coming back for more here at GeekTonic
PopcornHour C200 Preview and First Look – A very nice media player with all kinds of capability including optional Blu-ray optical
iPod Without iTunes – The most popular guest post ever at GeekTonic. Reader, ZetaVu hit a home run with this article which continues to get new readers daily. Hmm, you think folks aren’t happy with iTunes after all???
Ultimate Fall 2009 TV Premiere Schedule – This is now dated, but shows the popularity of the TV Premiere schedules I prepare. Thank goodness for that because I spend days putting this thing together three times a year and then countless hours updating it with changes and corrections during the season. The latest version for Winter 2010 TV Premiere Schedule is already a popular item for this month
HTPC Wireless Keyboard Roundup Part 2 - Vidabox Premium Wireless HTPC Keyboard – A nice HTPC keyboard by Vidabox
SageTV Tip: TV Channel Logos in SageTV Guide – This was an easy how-to on adding TV logos to your SageTV EPG. Also includes links to a huge number of TV logos which is part of the appeal of this post I’m sure.
Linksys Discontinuing All Media Extenders DMA 2100 and DMA 2200 – This is my biggest disappointment of 2009. Not necessarily just that Linksys dropped out of the MC extender market, but the absence of extenders for Media Center in general other than the XBox360.
The Ultimate Directory of SageTV 3rd Party Applications
DIY HDMI and USB Over Ethernet – An Extender Alternative – The second most popular guest post on GeekTonic
Thanks again for being a part of GeekTonic. I appreciate all of the readers and contributors here and will strive to make GeekTonic even better in 2010!
