MM player stats (was Re: [thelist] Sound in webpages)

[Stuart Young]

(I'm sorry I'm going to top-post this one.)

I have been tracking these Macromedia/NPD Research stats for years and
I also question the validity/accuracy of the stats, (although not for
the reason you give which is a completely useless spurious anecdotal
argument. You are not representative of the wider public, you are just a
vocal minority.) 

The results just look fishy to me.

I have issues with - the stats don't change much - its like NPD found a
sample of 1000 people and then they stick with the same sample of people
- consequently not much change.

I have issues with the % Windows Media Player. It stays static when I
would expect that as more and more people bought new multimedia PCs with
windows media player pre-installed the % of windows media player would
rise and rise and approach the 90% figures that IE does.

Finally, you mention that Firefox doesn't have Flash preinstalled and
consequently the Flash % can't be 98%. However the NPD survey is from
March 2004. All the browser stats stories I have seen in the last few
months (and last few days with Firefox 1.0) say that Firefox made little
or no impression on the IE figures until the middle of this year when
the IE security scare stories and switch browser campaigns really began
in earnest. Firefox may be approaching 10% now (unlikely - probably not
much more than 5%) but it was only 1 or 2% in March 2004. Also, the
early adopters using Firefox are likely to be technological saavy and
able to install their own plug-ins.

I must assemble a webpage that has all those MM players stats over the
years.

cheers

--
Dr Stuart Young,       	+64 (0)9-815 4321 x 8656
<syoung at unitec.ac.nz> 	+64 021 183 2846 (mob)
Lecturer, School of Computing and Information Technology,
Unitec New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand
http://tinyurl.com/4956o
(the official URL for my staffpage is too long and complex)
http://www.pixelandgrain.co.nz/
Web development, graphic design and photography

>>> richard.bennett at skynet.be 12/11/2004 12:07:00 >>>
On Thursday 11 November 2004 21:31, Wilma Schilder wrote:
> According to Macromedia:
>
> http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/ 

Makes me wonder though...
98% have flash...
I don't, and none of the searchengines do.
88% have Java.
I have never ever had Java on any browser in over 10 years...
55% have shockwave?
Again, I've never had it.
51% media player...
Nope - don't have it.
In fact, of the whole list I only have Adobe Acrobat

Then if we check how they got these statistics it says:
"In March 2004, NPD Research, the parent company of MediaMetrix,
conducted a 
study to determine what percentage of Web browsers have Macromedia
Flash 
preinstalled.The results show that 98.0% of Web users can experience 
Macromedia Flash content without having to download and install a
player."

Now, firstly I wonder how that study got them the statistics about
Java, 
Shockwave, Mediaplayer etc, and secondly, browser-use stats show 
Mozilla-based browsers use to be somewhere over 10% at the moment - and
the 
Firefox versions I downloaded came without Flash pre-installed, in fact
I 
don't think any browsers beside IE have Flash pre-installed, so if
that's the 
measure they use to say 98% have Flash, I wouldn't be surprised if the
true 
number is more like 75%.