On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 9:02 PM, Steven Walling
<steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's really great to see Wikipedia highlighted as
a source for news and
current events. It's rare that people fully recognize the degree to which
the "encyclopedia" is actually very good at trending news information. That
said, the report paints a rosy picture that, strategically speaking, may
not be cause for celebration.
Remember that, when looking at pageviews, we're a little over 40% mobile.
Most other major Internet properties are now primarily mobile, and that's
where most media consumption is even in once desktop-centric markets like
the US.(1)
Has Dario or anyone done an update on the traffic analysis from 2014,(2)
where we concluded that declining desktop traffic in mature markets like
the US was not being offset by mobile web?
Yes, in the February metrics meeting
(
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File%3AWMF_Metrics_%26_Acti…
, see also
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_monthly_pageviews_(worldw…
). We left out the US-specific part, but still discussed how
mobile/desktop has been developing in the Global North vs. the Global
South.
What's the current state of the
world when it comes to Wikipedia mobile traffic, overall and broken down by
app vs. mobile web?
Last week about 45% of our pageviews were on mobile web and a
bit over
1% came from the apps. See also the readership metrics reports
(
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_readership_metrics_re…
).
It seems obvious that part of the reason Wikipedia is so popular on mobile
web is because we're an odd duck -- Wikimedia is one of the only top media
orgs not doing any kind of app upsell at all on mobile web. The vast
majority of major Internet properties heavily push app installs and usage
to varying degrees of aggressiveness. This directly sacrifices mobile web
traffic for a longterm gain in reader retention.
The linked report shows that Wikipedia app users are much more engaged --
avg time spent per person in the Wikipedia app is more than double that of
mobile web, according to their data -- but the number of app users is
ridiculously tiny, relatively speaking.(3)
True. At the same time (which
doesn't negate your point), it's also
worth being aware that absolutely speaking, the Wikipedia app(s) still
had more monthly US users than those of Buzzfeed, USA Today and Fox
News, according to the study.
In commercial apps, prioritizing
long term retention of app users is good for a business. They can then be
converted to subscribers, purchase in-app upgrades, or click on ads. In the
Wikimedia context, greater mobile retention and time spent could be used to
teach people to contribute, and to facilitate less aggressive forms of
mobile fundraising than we've previously had to do. Not to mention
providing readers with faster direct access to knowledge, and doing a
better job of teaching mobile-first US in emerging markets what Wikipedia
is.
Food for thought. (CCing the Mobile-l list again)
Neglecting to show people the value of the apps will help grow mobile web
traffic in the short term, but in the long run may leave us entirely
dependent on search (i.e. Google) or simply not growing readers, despite
millions of people still coming online via mobile. In the report data you
can see that most of the US news sites mentioned are dependent on Facebook,
even if they have an app. Unlike them, Wikipedia has an opportunity to get
away from being dependent on another source for readers, and be one of the
primary apps that every person on the planet uses, alongside Facebook,
messaging tools, and similar. Right now, we're squandering that
opportunity, and it's going to get harder to change as time goes on.
1.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-…
2.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014_Readership_Update,_WMF_Metrics_Me…
3.
https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to/news-goe…
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 12:50 PM Michael Peel <email(a)mikepeel.net> wrote:
Isn't it time to start moving to responsive
mediawiki templates (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design), rather than having
a separate mobile interface/URL?
For a practical example, see the BBC News website (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news), which is the same website on all devices, it
just rescales the content/navigation/layout to suit the device. (Try
resizing your web browser on your computer to the size of a mobile web
browser to see what I mean.)
Thanks,
Mike
On 11 May 2016, at 20:36, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hoi,
It is wonderful to see how we have evolved.. Does anyone remember the
good
old days when it was an application totally and
utterly outside of
MediaWiki?
Thanks,
GerardM
On 11 May 2016 at 20:33, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia
> readership.
>
> Thanks Tilman!
>
> Pine
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tilman Bayer <tbayer(a)wikimedia.org>
> Date: Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:23 AM
> Subject: [WikimediaMobile] "Among mobile sites, Wikipedia reigns in
terms
> of popularity"
> To: mobile-l <mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Cc: Wikimedia developers <wikitech-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>, Analytics
Team
> -
> Internal <analytics-internal(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation:
>
https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to ,
> summarized here:
>
>
"People spent more time on Wikipedia’s mobile site than any other news
or information site in Knight’s analysis, about 13 minutes per month
for the average visitor. CNN wasn’t too far behind, at 9 minutes 45
seconds per month. BuzzFeed clocked in third at 9 minutes 21 seconds
per month. (BuzzFeed, however, slays both CNN and Wikipedia in time
spent with the sites’ apps, compared with mobile websites. BuzzFeed
users devote more than 2 hours per month to its apps, compared with
about 46 minutes among CNN app users and 31 minutes among Wikipedia
app loyalists.)
Another way to look at Wikipedia’s influence: Wikipedia reaches almost
one-third of the total mobile population each month, according to
Knight’s analysis, which used data from the audience-tracking firm
Nielsen."
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
_______________________________________________
Mobile-l mailing list
Mobile-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
,_2013-2016.png){kind=link}