Among other differences, NetMarketShare only looks at 40,000 websites, mostly in North America, and they only count each visitor once a day. Meaning that if one user spent two seconds looking at one page on a website, and another spent hours viewing 100 pages on that website, they count as the same "usage". In other words, it doesn't actually tell us web usage, but only the number of of their rather limited sites visited.
StatCounter tracks over 3 million websites, and counts each page view, which is more real life web usage. Except... the downside of counting page views is that some browsers tend to reload pages a lot within a website, even if just navigating back and forth between a main menu and each page. That would falsely skew both page and ad views in favor of those browsers.
It is not necessarily true that counting each page view gives more real life web usage stats. For one thing, the unique visitor per day methodology gives a better picture of how many users you have, uninflated by a handful of heavy users. Also, it prevents the numbers being fraudulently skewed by bots that just register repeated clicks and page views. There isn't a perfect methodology because of the nature of the web, but looking at unique visitors rather than page views is a much better metric in this instance.
But really the bigger sin in these meaningless numbers is not properly weighting them for differences in internet usage by country.
Then go ahead. You have the raw data from StatCounter. Not sure why you'd want to, since the purpose is to count the ACTUAL usage.
In any case, the major factor is that NetMarketShare only counts each visitor once. That's not showing web usage at all.
"Net Market Share data is an aggregation the traffic of all of our HitsLink clients, but instead of counting pageviews we count daily unique visitors. A daily unique visitor is counted only once per day per website we track, regardless of the number of pageviews the visitor has. While this may seem to greatly reduce our sample size from the billions of monthly pageviews we process to only the daily unique visitors, we do so to provide a more accurate picture of market share showing the number of users of a technology instead of the number of clicks."
In other words, they're only trying to count OS users, not their actual web usage.
To them, someone who clicks on AppleInsider and leaves right away, counts just as much as someone who spends all day reading every thread.
It is not necessarily true that counting each page view gives more real life web usage stats. For one thing, the unique visitor per day methodology gives a better picture of how many users you have, uninflated by a handful of heavy users. Also, it prevents the numbers being fraudulently skewed by bots that just register repeated clicks and page views. There isn't a perfect methodology because of the nature of the web, but looking at unique visitors rather than page views is a much better metric in this instance.
That's all true IF and ONLY IF the purpose is to count unique visitors.
We are trying to determine web usage, which requires knowing what those visitors did as far as page views, downloads, etc.
It left out the iPad and iPad Mini. Given the massive installed bases those represent for iOS, and the fact that so many are sold with cellular connectivity, it's a bit disingenuous to remove them from the equation and pretend that some other OS has made big gains in web share. And that doesn't even count people like me that don't have the 3G/4G chip in their iPad but regularly use their iPhones as a 4G hotspot so they can surf the web on their iPad. While Samsung does make things like the Galaxy Tab, the sales of those are so miniscule compared to the iPad line, leaving those out doesn't really hurt Samsung's numbers. Plus it's including numbers from those ginormous "phablets" (the Note series) which only makes the omission of the iPad and iPad Mini even more glaring.
But really the bigger sin in these meaningless numbers is not properly weighting them for differences in internet usage by country.
But their statistics for phones not tablets, I don't understand your objections here.
But their statistics for phones not tablets, I don't understand your objections here.
It's an artificial parsing of categories, paired with a bad metric to get a wildly different result. These stats don't tell us more "people" are using Samsung mobile devices to access the web, it tells us that Samsung devices (some of which blur the lines between tablet and phone) managed to accumulate more page hits than a narrow subset of iOS devices (which leaves out a significant portion of the iOS user base).
That's all true IF and ONLY IF the purpose is to count unique visitors.
We are trying to determine web usage, which requires knowing what those visitors did as far as page views, downloads, etc.
The story says: "A new study has found that more people in the world are using Samsung-made smartphones to access the Internet than are using Apple's iPhone, marking the first time that has been the case."
That is not the case. What it found was that Samsung smartphones and phablets generated more page views than iPhones. Unique visitors would tell you whether more people were using them. For all we know, various automated bots could be generating a lot of page views, which is one reason NetMarketShare rejects that methodology. Or a relatively small subset of users could be heavy web surfers...but that still wouldn't tell you if more actual people were using Samsung mobile devices to surf the web.
The story says: "A new study has found that more people in the world are using Samsung-made smartphones to access the Internet than are using Apple's iPhone, marking the first time that has been the case."
Ah thanks, you're right. I got caught up in the other responses about usage. Mea culpa.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
Neither stat source tells the whole story.
Among other differences, NetMarketShare only looks at 40,000 websites, mostly in North America, and they only count each visitor once a day. Meaning that if one user spent two seconds looking at one page on a website, and another spent hours viewing 100 pages on that website, they count as the same "usage". In other words, it doesn't actually tell us web usage, but only the number of of their rather limited sites visited.
StatCounter tracks over 3 million websites, and counts each page view, which is more real life web usage. Except... the downside of counting page views is that some browsers tend to reload pages a lot within a website, even if just navigating back and forth between a main menu and each page. That would falsely skew both page and ad views in favor of those browsers.
It is not necessarily true that counting each page view gives more real life web usage stats. For one thing, the unique visitor per day methodology gives a better picture of how many users you have, uninflated by a handful of heavy users. Also, it prevents the numbers being fraudulently skewed by bots that just register repeated clicks and page views. There isn't a perfect methodology because of the nature of the web, but looking at unique visitors rather than page views is a much better metric in this instance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanTiger
But really the bigger sin in these meaningless numbers is not properly weighting them for differences in internet usage by country.
Then go ahead. You have the raw data from StatCounter. Not sure why you'd want to, since the purpose is to count the ACTUAL usage.
In any case, the major factor is that NetMarketShare only counts each visitor once. That's not showing web usage at all.
"Net Market Share data is an aggregation the traffic of all of our HitsLink clients, but instead of counting pageviews we count daily unique visitors. A daily unique visitor is counted only once per day per website we track, regardless of the number of pageviews the visitor has. While this may seem to greatly reduce our sample size from the billions of monthly pageviews we process to only the daily unique visitors, we do so to provide a more accurate picture of market share showing the number of users of a technology instead of the number of clicks."
In other words, they're only trying to count OS users, not their actual web usage.
To them, someone who clicks on AppleInsider and leaves right away, counts just as much as someone who spends all day reading every thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanTiger
It is not necessarily true that counting each page view gives more real life web usage stats. For one thing, the unique visitor per day methodology gives a better picture of how many users you have, uninflated by a handful of heavy users. Also, it prevents the numbers being fraudulently skewed by bots that just register repeated clicks and page views. There isn't a perfect methodology because of the nature of the web, but looking at unique visitors rather than page views is a much better metric in this instance.
That's all true IF and ONLY IF the purpose is to count unique visitors.
We are trying to determine web usage, which requires knowing what those visitors did as far as page views, downloads, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanTiger
It left out the iPad and iPad Mini. Given the massive installed bases those represent for iOS, and the fact that so many are sold with cellular connectivity, it's a bit disingenuous to remove them from the equation and pretend that some other OS has made big gains in web share. And that doesn't even count people like me that don't have the 3G/4G chip in their iPad but regularly use their iPhones as a 4G hotspot so they can surf the web on their iPad. While Samsung does make things like the Galaxy Tab, the sales of those are so miniscule compared to the iPad line, leaving those out doesn't really hurt Samsung's numbers. Plus it's including numbers from those ginormous "phablets" (the Note series) which only makes the omission of the iPad and iPad Mini even more glaring.
But really the bigger sin in these meaningless numbers is not properly weighting them for differences in internet usage by country.
But their statistics for phones not tablets, I don't understand your objections here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Relic
But their statistics for phones not tablets, I don't understand your objections here.
It's an artificial parsing of categories, paired with a bad metric to get a wildly different result. These stats don't tell us more "people" are using Samsung mobile devices to access the web, it tells us that Samsung devices (some of which blur the lines between tablet and phone) managed to accumulate more page hits than a narrow subset of iOS devices (which leaves out a significant portion of the iOS user base).
Quote:
Originally Posted by KDarling
That's all true IF and ONLY IF the purpose is to count unique visitors.
We are trying to determine web usage, which requires knowing what those visitors did as far as page views, downloads, etc.
The story says: "A new study has found that more people in the world are using Samsung-made smartphones to access the Internet than are using Apple's iPhone, marking the first time that has been the case."
That is not the case. What it found was that Samsung smartphones and phablets generated more page views than iPhones. Unique visitors would tell you whether more people were using them. For all we know, various automated bots could be generating a lot of page views, which is one reason NetMarketShare rejects that methodology. Or a relatively small subset of users could be heavy web surfers...but that still wouldn't tell you if more actual people were using Samsung mobile devices to surf the web.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanTiger
The story says: "A new study has found that more people in the world are using Samsung-made smartphones to access the Internet than are using Apple's iPhone, marking the first time that has been the case."
Ah thanks, you're right. I got caught up in the other responses about usage. Mea culpa.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yojimbo007
Bogus.. Samsung bribed article!
As Alawys the low lives are at their game !
Citation needed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Getz
All those trojans spamming the world?
What I was thinking: all those Android exploit bots obeying their masters....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac95
That rise is due to NSA servers accessing Android devices .
Fixed it for you