The Exploding Internet Trends

This is a graph that visually maps out internet usage world-wide. You can look through numbers all night, but nothing can help us comprehend the massiveness of the web like an illustration as such:

The Exploding Internet

There are several thought-provoking digits to draw conclusions from:

• China has the biggest user base, even though it is one of the countries that censors the web the most. Also, if your were to take into consideration that it is the most populous nation on the planet, and that less than a fifth of the population access the internet, the number loses significance. Japan, on the other hand, boasts a usage percentage of 74%
• India is widely believed to be an IT haven, and surely enough over 60 million Indians are connected to the information super highway. However, that number represents no more than 4% of its population
• Voice Over IP represents a mere 6%, which is shocking. With an infrastructure already in place, and the costs mostly taken care of, why is the huge majority still relying on old-school telephony? I expect this number to triplee in 2009, especially with various options available
• Africa doesn’t seem to exist – the sad story that I had discussed in an earlier post

It is beneficial for regular users to visualize the latest trends in terms of Internet usage worldwide. When the 2009 graphs are out, it will be interesting to compare and spot where the movement is heading. The beauty of the usage trends is that it is set by no one, except for the users themselves, and that is the source of freedom. The downside of the story, however, is the significant world population that is left outside of the internet game.

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Alexa: Top Sites In Egypt

Although not exactly accurate, Alexa.com provides intriguing information regarding the most visited websites on the Internet, and can be viewed by country or category. Just like the architecture or gastronomy says a lot about a culture, sites visited on the web can say a lot about the people. If you were to check out the Alexa page for the top sites in Egypt, you would be surprised by the quality of websites that make it to that list. After the usual Google, Yahoo!, Facebook and YouTube, the following were the company:

• MyEgy.com: A portal for downloading Arabic and English movies, songs, programs and games. All perfectly illegal
• RapidShare: File hosting and exchange. Not necessarily used for exchanging legal office documents
• Maktoob.com: A Saudi portal offering everything from news to forums and downloads
• Travian.ae: An MMORPG, this is the Arabic version made for the Middle East

Add to the pile Masrawy.com (whose appalling design inspired me to talk about it), Yallakora.com (equally as disappointing, only this one focuses on football), and Filgoal.com (yet another football site, but definitely classier than the former), and you will have the unique mix specific to Egypt. Judging from this list, we could conclude the following:

1. Egyptians use the internet mainly for entertainment
2. Forums are over-overwhelmingly popular
3. People prefer local news sources as oppose to international ones, regardless of the poor quality
4. Needless to say, football is an essential aspect of life
5. Online gaming and downloads are a basic need

The sad but true story is that the Egyptians are not taking full advantage of the power of the web. In fact, it seems that people waste a significant amount of time between social networking, illegal file-exchange, and online gaming, than looking up information (via Wikipedia, for example, that hasn’t even made it to the top 20), or uncensored international news sources (such as BBC Arabic or AlJazeera). In fact, very little attention is paid to the aesthetics of a given website – the majority of regional websites in the list are over-exploited with ads, incompatible with Firefox, and just look plain ugly. The value of the website is in the free services that it offers, which basically means illegal downloads.

MyEgy.com: sadly popular

While such findings can trigger depression and loss of hope, there is light at the end of the tunnel, especially if you keep the following in mind:

1. Egypt’s relatively new to the internet. There will be millions of users coming on board in the near future
2. There’s plenty of room for competition, which will invite start-ups and Web 2.0 projects to invest and bet on a market share
3. More international websites will realize the importance of having an Arabic version, potentially attracting millions of users

With free dial-up access nation-wide, and affordable DSL connections, there’s no doubt that more and more users in Egypt will rely on the Internet for news and information that was previously hard to get a hold of. But before we reach that stage, it is normal for a population to ecstatically celebrate freebies in an overwhelming fashion, before the rush calms down and the  real benefits of the World Wide Web arise. Until then, any Web 2.0 projects aimed at Egypt, anyone?

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Piwik: Open Source Web Analytics

The Piwik Analytics' Logo

More and more web applications are being made available for download for users to place on their own server. One of the latest products of the beautiful open-source globe is Piwik: an online application that brings you all of the detailed statistics regarding your website’s visitors. Tracking the visitors to a given website is a crucial measurement of success/failure, and is the base of most of the decisions that are made.

While there are a number of web applications that can provide you with such information, Piwik is complete free and open-source. More importantly, it is hosted on your own server, giving you complete control, and freedom to alter however you see fit.

The Piwik Dashboard

For starters, the Ajax-driven dashboard is very intuitive and easy to use. You can select which widgets you want to see on the first page, and in what order. That’s because the Piwik team have made the realization that analytics’ users would want to access the admin panel very frequently, but would rarely go after small, relatively-insignificant details. That, within itself, is a demonstration of how the level of usability of open-source products is always superior to commercial counterparts – with so many volunteers, you’re bound to have something that pleases everyone.

Moreover, after the unprecedented success of the Firefox extensions’ concept, Piwik is developed to allow for plugins built by the community, meaning that the sky is the limit, as far as the features are concerned. The script ships with some of the basic plugins that you would be using.

Some of the unique features include the ability to see the Outlinks, showing how the visitors exited the websites, as well as the Downloads, which reveals the files that the users have downloaded off your website. Not to mention an extensive referrers’ section that indicates whether the users arrived via direct entry, another website, or a search engine (and in all three cases, giving all of the associated details).

Why use Piwik and not Google Analytics?

Many administrators rely on Google Analytics for visitors’ statistics, but Piwik’s edge is very clear:

1. Piwik is free and open-source, Google have the right to go commercial when they feel like it
2. Piwik is hosted on your server, and it’s not going anywhere. While Google can start bombarding you with ads if they feel like it, or limit your access
3. It’s important to keep your statistics private. When Google know everything there is about your visitors and have the right to use that information. They can shape the AdSense market, because they’ll know what people are looking for, and can therefore control pricing, making everyone pay more for keywords. However, when it’s on your server, Google have less control over ad pricing
4. Piwik is a lot easier to use, a lot more light-weight. More importantly, the future is a lot brighter, thanks to the plugins’ infrastructure.

Using Piwik is extremely easy. Just go to http://piwik.org, download the latest version, upload it to a directory on your server (for example: www.yourwebsite.com/piwik), point your browser to that directoy, and follow the on-screen instructions. You will need PHP and MySQL on your server, which are available in 99% of all hosts. After that, copy the code snippet into all of the pages of your website, and watch the magic.

If you’re using WordPress, install Piwik and use the WP-Piwik plugin that automatically places a valid code in all parts of the website.

We are now moving out of the “open-source alternative” era, and into the “an obviously better choice, regardless of the fact that it’s open-source” realm.

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