Over on Geekzone Mauricio reports an astounding July audited traffic increase of over 25% in total traffic and over 45% local traffic.
Now those in the know will realise that July was also the month that New Zealand users got access to legitimate iPhones. Mauricio apparently puts the bulk of the increase down to that one fact. Now I love the iPhone – it’s a cool unit that is lots of fun to use (not that I have much), but I’d always poured scorn on the assertion that it was a game changer. My take was that it is an evolutionary rather than revolutionary device.
If Mauricio is correct and the launch of a single device into a market can lead to a net 20% increase in traffic (20% being the local increase less the global increase) – that’s a pretty awesome argument that we’re seeing something new here….
I don’t think he’s saying that the iPhone is causing people to browse more. If you see the huge number of comments on the several iPhone forum posts (e.g. “When is it coming”, “OMFG the prices suck”, etc.), I think he’s saying that all the hype led to a spike in traffic.
Don’t blame me… I only listen to podcasts on mine… I blame Canada…
Ben is right there…
Argh. Sorry folks – I am saying BEN the comment #1 is correct.
Too many Ben on this page!
There has been serious hype around Iphone – Google zeitgeist shows the same. Note that propensity to search / comment / drool over does not equal propensity to purchase!
Having said that, any article I have written that has iphone in the topic generates twice as many hits as not.
No you don’t BenK! Weren’t you recently going on about the iphone being just a phone, dammit?
The networks are burning the midnight oil trying to make sense of the usage/data patterns and then things will change.
@Robin – I’ll admit it – I vacillate from one extreme to the other!
Oh – and I have to admit now, Friday was the biggest traffic day thanks to Geekzone and Diversity. CTO in waiting indeed Ben – I’m still trying to perfect my cheese scones…