Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics Team - Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Thanks for sharing Pine, quite interesting. Best,
2016-05-11 13:33 GMT-05:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thanks Pine, as said, very interesting!
Best regards, Habib
Le 11/05/2016 19:42, Ivan Martínez a écrit :
Thanks for sharing Pine, quite interesting. Best,
2016-05-11 13:33 GMT-05:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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@gmail.com wrote:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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@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@gmail.com wrote:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On 11 May 2016 at 12:50, Michael Peel email@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.)
Hey Mike,
I think you're confusing two things – a single skin with responsive design for all users on all devices, which is a long-term ambition, but for the Reading department to talk about :-) – and responsive templates for content, which we're working on in terms of scoped styling for templates through TemplateStyles ( https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TemplateStyles, though by "we" I mostly mean Coren as a volunteer developer). This second one is going through security review right now, but once that's complete we'll enable it for testing and gradual roll-out.
Scoped styling of templates will let template authors make their templates work on any sized device, which will massively improve the terrible experience from templates like infoboxes, navboxes, amboxes, and especially one-off templates like those used by the Signpost. However, it'll need a concerted effort from all of us to re-write and improve all the thousands of templates across our hundreds of wikis to make this a reality. It requires judgement, æsthetics and expertise, and so isn't something that can be done automatically by software. It's a big effort, but it's going to be worth it. :-)
J.
On 11 May 2016, at 22:07, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 11 May 2016 at 12:50, Michael Peel email@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.)
Hey Mike,
I think you're confusing two things – a single skin with responsive design for all users on all devices, which is a long-term ambition, but for the Reading department to talk about :-) – and responsive templates for content, which we're working on in terms of scoped styling for templates through TemplateStyles ( https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:TemplateStyles, though by "we" I mostly mean Coren as a volunteer developer). This second one is going through security review right now, but once that's complete we'll enable it for testing and gradual roll-out.
Scoped styling of templates will let template authors make their templates work on any sized device, which will massively improve the terrible experience from templates like infoboxes, navboxes, amboxes, and especially one-off templates like those used by the Signpost. However, it'll need a concerted effort from all of us to re-write and improve all the thousands of templates across our hundreds of wikis to make this a reality. It requires judgement, æsthetics and expertise, and so isn't something that can be done automatically by software. It's a big effort, but it's going to be worth it. :-)
When I said templates here I meant skins - sorry for using confusing/outdated terminology (back when I was last developing website skins, they were called templates!). It's great to hear that they're being worked on - mediawiki template styles are definitely something that need improving in the near future (hopefully along with table styles, since they are currently horribly displayed on mobiles). I'm hoping that having a responsive skin for the webpages isn't too far off, though?
Thanks, Mike
On 11 May 2016 at 14:20, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
I'm hoping that having a responsive skin for the webpages isn't too far off, though?
Reading can answer that better than I; however, making the skin itself is only part of the issue – you also would want to scrap m.wikimedia.org *etc. *Right now, the mobile sites have to make massive changes to the content to make it fit on a mobile screen (and even then can't fix some things, like tables). Giving mobile users a responsive skin whilst the contents weren't appropriate wouldn't make anyone happy. Until the contents of at least most the millions of pages of Wikimedia wikis' projects are mobile-safe, we can't reasonably get rid of the mobile "site".
J.
Hi, For those of you following who I haven't worked with before, I am the lead product manager for the reading team.
I think James is right that the content is a primary barrier and its an issue we are exploring across both reading and editing. For what its worth, this applies not just to the web but to all non-desktop usage, including apps and 3rd party developers. I believe our 3rd meeting on the topic is tomorrow morning and Moushira just posted this invitation to participate more broadly on wiki: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Mobile_Friendly_Content.
Whether we end up getting rid of the mobile site or follow another path towards unity is an open question.
Another big barrier to having a single site and one we have to address regardless, is how we add advanced tools to mobile without crushing the average user. Over the years the desktop site has accumulated many useful features/tools and this is reflected in the various rich options on the desktop site. Mobile screen real estate, however, is much more limited and the affordances are quite different. So far, we have focused on a simple experience because we know we can't mush the entire left-hand navigation field into the mobile menu or provide the same list of 40+ settings that are on desktop. This has provided us with a remarkable experiment in reading that at least anecdotally suggests most readers prefer a simpler experience.
However, it does not yet work well for editors and certainly not for more advanced contributions. So, we need to figure out how we can maintain the pathway from reader --> contributor on mobile without generating a user experience nightmare. One of our big challenges in creating a unified experience is figuring out how we move someone from a basic reading view to a first-time editor view, to a power-user-genius view in a way that entices a potential contributor and optimizes the experience for everyone else. There are multiple options on the table here and I think it's going to be a long conversation ;)
Thanks,
J
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 2:25 PM, James Forrester jforrester@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 11 May 2016 at 14:20, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
I'm hoping that having a responsive skin for the webpages isn't too far off, though?
Reading can answer that better than I; however, making the skin itself is only part of the issue – you also would want to scrap m.wikimedia.org *etc. *Right now, the mobile sites have to make massive changes to the content to make it fit on a mobile screen (and even then can't fix some things, like tables). Giving mobile users a responsive skin whilst the contents weren't appropriate wouldn't make anyone happy. Until the contents of at least most the millions of pages of Wikimedia wikis' projects are mobile-safe, we can't reasonably get rid of the mobile "site".
J.
James D. Forrester Lead Product Manager, Editing Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
jforrester@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
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? What's the current state of the world when it comes to Wikipedia mobile traffic, overall and broken down by app vs. mobile web?
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) 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.
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-t... 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014_Readership_Update,_WMF_Metrics_Mee... 3. https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to/news-goes...
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 12:50 PM Michael Peel email@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@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@gmail.com wrote:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics
Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 9:02 PM, Steven Walling steven.walling@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_Activ... , see also https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_monthly_pageviews_(worldwi... ). 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_rep... ).
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.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-t... 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014_Readership_Update,_WMF_Metrics_Mee... 3. https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to/news-goes...
On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 12:50 PM Michael Peel email@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@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@gmail.com wrote:
Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia readership.
Thanks Tilman!
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tilman Bayer tbayer@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@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Analytics
Team
Internal analytics-internal@lists.wikimedia.org
New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , summarized here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/...
"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@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@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Steven Walling 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.
Does the Knight Foundation disclose somewhere in this report that it's a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation?
Comparing Wikipedia to sites like BuzzFeed and CNN seems to be a pretty classic case of comparing apples to oranges.
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.
Can you elaborate on the value of the apps? HTTP is a free and open standard with very wide support. iOS is closed and proprietary. Maybe you can explain how investing resources into the latter aligns with Wikimedia's values?
Personally, I say hasten the day that we abolish the horrible "m." from our URLs and MobileFrontend from our servers.
MZMcBride
Inline.
On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 1:28 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Steven Walling 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.
Does the Knight Foundation disclose somewhere in this report that it's a donor to the Wikimedia Foundation?
I didn't see it in there. Looks like this was commissioned work.
Comparing Wikipedia to sites like BuzzFeed and CNN seems to be a pretty classic case of comparing apples to oranges.
It seems like it's contextualized in https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to/mobile-am... as follows:
"The information and reference site Wikipedia is linked to news behavior and is a critical pathway to the news and information ecosystem."
"Information and reference sites are linked to news behavior and often drive traffic to news content. Wikipedia figures prominently in mobile content access."
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.
Can you elaborate on the value of the apps? HTTP is a free and open standard with very wide support. iOS is closed and proprietary. Maybe you can explain how investing resources into the latter aligns with Wikimedia's values?
The web and the apps are both ways to provide access to the openly licensed content. We should and do invest in both on the grounds of reaching users through popular channels.
I think Steven was talking about something different in terms of strategic risk of disintermediation, though. I don't see the future as dystopian. Rather I see a more utopian future requiring continued improvement in dialogue with communities and nurturing of partnerships.
Personally, I say hasten the day that we abolish the horrible "m." from our URLs and MobileFrontend from our servers.
I don't think it's something we're planning to do soon, but I agree it would be nice to consolidate domain names.
I don't think we're at the place where we can yet deliver on converging the full tech stack (and this was the feedback we basically received at the dev summit), although I think we should keep iterating on this discussion over the coming quarters. There are good things in MediaWiki Core and desktop-oriented extensions and there are good things in MobileFrontend, and I'm interested to see how we can port some things over if not consolidate some pieces.
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