The estimated reading time for this post is 3 minutes
Tomorrow marks the seventh anniversary of The Wonder of Tech, which first published on January 23, 2011. Once again, thanks to you dear readers, The Wonder of Tech has continued to thrive.
I’m often asked if I run out of topics to write about after all these years, but I can assure you that tech does not stand still. As my last article points out, tech innovators continue to amaze us with fun and useful products: Tantalizing Tech from the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show.
I hope The Wonder of Tech has brought you fun and useful tech in the past year. Maybe you discovered a new device, app or website that was interesting to you. Perhaps you found a helpful tech tip that saved you time or effort. Or maybe you found tech to make you safer.
The Wonder of Tech 2017 Annual Report
2017 was a banner year for The Wonder of Tech. Traffic grew tremendously, with a 62% increase over 2016. By the end of the year, December traffic was double that of the previous year.
This infographic shows some interesting stats about The Wonder of Tech for 2017:
Visitors to The Wonder of Tech
If you’re reading this now, and I’m pretty sure you are, you are a visitor to The Wonder of Tech.
In addition to more visitors at The Wonder of Tech, more countries were represented by readers: 226, up from 220 in 2016. More visitors came from countries outside the US in 2017 than in 2016, but the US was still the biggest source of visitors.
After the US, the countries that sent the most visitors here were:
- United Kingdom
- Canada
- India
- Australia
which were the same top countries as in 2016.
A special shout out goes to these countries who had one visitor in 2017:
- St. Barthélemy
- Kiribati
- St. Martin
- Mauritania
- Norfolk Island
- Nauru
- Svalbard & Jal Mayen
And a warm welcome to readers from every one of the 226 countries who visited in 2017. Thank you for visiting The Wonder of Tech!
Top Articles of 2017
The top article for the year was absolutely perplexing to me. The article, Bitstrips — Create Your Own Comics Starring You! is about tech that doesn’t exist anymore. Bitstrips was purchased by Snapchat in 2016 and has been retired.
Yet each day I still get over a hundred visits to the Bitstrips article, even though I explain the tech is defunct at the beginning of the article. Many days it’s the most popular article. Go figure.
I even tried writing an article about Bitmoji, the successor to Bitstrips, Bitmojis — Emojis Starring You! But people somehow care much more about Bitstrips than Bitmojis.
Articles about organizing Pinterest boards again took two of the top five spots this year for most traffic. Kindle articles were also very popular this year.
Referrers
70% of traffic came from Internet searches in 2017, which was an increase of about 17% over the previous year. Google sent 153% more traffic in 2017 than in 2016. I’m not sure what I did to make Google so happy, but they sure sent more visitors here. Bing also sent about a third more readers in 2017 than in 2016.
Pinterest also sent about 25% more readers in 2017 than in 2016. But StumbleUpon, one of the top sources for traffic in 2016, sent 63% fewer visitors last year.
Poll
2018 is bound to be filled with even more fun and useful tech. What do you most want to read about at The Wonder of Tech?
Vote in the poll to share your opinion. You can vote for as many topics as you’d like!
Your Thoughts
Were you surprised by any of the statistics from 2017 at The Wonder of Tech? Do you know why the Bitstrips article was the most popular at The Wonder of Tech in 2017 even though it was shuttered in 2016? What was your favorite article at The Wonder of Tech last year? Did The Wonder of Tech help you this past year?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
* Computer photo (edited) courtesy of Alex Knight via Unsplash and Creative Commons
** Thank You image (edited) courtesy of Secular Ethos via Pixabay and Creative Commons
*** Welcome Mat article courtesy of Dru Bloomfield via Flickr and Creative Commons
BUT, have you reached the status of ‘we knew you when?’ Between your global travels and speaking engagements, how do you find time to write?
I’m proud of you Carolyn, a true survivor; congrats and best of luck to your continued journey and success.
Hi Bill, Thank you for your kind wishes. The blogging world hadn’t been the same since you left us, but I’m not ready to leave the party quite yet.
Have laptop, will travel. The good news is that I can write from anywhere, which greatly helps me publish on my schedule.
Hope you’re doing well, Bill.
Happy Blogaversary, Carolyn! Such impressive growth and so deserved! You Go Girl!
Here’s to at least 7 more years!
Lori
Thank you so much, Lori! I never thought I’d still be writing The Wonder of Tech seven years later, but here I am.
And thank you for all of your wonderful support throughout the years.
Wow! Happy 8th Anniversary. I remember when you started the blog. You’ve come a long way Girl! I love your tech info & especially your Carolyn sense of humor. Keep on blogging & keeping us informed!!
Thanks, Jamie. That is the plan. I’m so glad you’ve found The Wonder of Tech to be helpful over the years.
Happy Birthday! What do you get a website for a birthday present? Share a Wonder of Tech post with a friend!
Hi Stephanie, Thanks, that’s the perfect present! I appreciate you sharing The Wonder of Tech with others.
Hi Carolyn,
Happy Blogiversary! 🙂
You sure have come a long way, my friend – and the graph just shows how popular Wonder of Tech is all over the world! Great going indeed!
You always make things so much easy for us to understand through the wonderful articles at your blog, Carolyn, which is why we all love being here!
Thanks for sharing, and wishing you all the very best for years to come! 🙂
Hi Harleena, Yes, we are the ones still hanging in there. And congratulations on your 7th blogging anniversary on December 25, Harleena! Your support over the years has be extraordinarily helpful.
Here’s to many more years of success for both of us!
Hey Happy 7th Anniversary and here’s to the blog continuing to grow and blossom!
Hi Lisa, Thank you for your warm wishes! I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Hi Carolyn, I’ve been it since day one. I love how your blog evolved and how easy you make it to read and understand. Some topics are not easy either.
Thank you for continuing to keep us informed. Congratulatioms!
Thank
Hi Lisa, Thank you so much for joining me in this journey. We old-timers must stick together as our numbers have dropped significantly. But I’m so glad you’re still inspiring us to thrive!
Congratulations on your 7th Anniversary, Carolyn and Wonder of Tech! You provide such a wonderful service to the community with this incredible blog. Funny, it seems like you’ve been coming to my e-mail inbox for a lot longer. Year after year, I continue to appreciate your highlights and easy-to-understand language. How an attorney developed such skills to not only distill hard subjects (for me, sometimes, at least) into fun, entertaining and clear verbiage but also get to the point quickly, boggles my mind. Thank you for making me smile, discover and understand.
Hi Nanette, Aw, thank you very much. You have been with The Wonder of Tech from the very beginning and I truly appreciate your support over the years.
You’re right, I had to dramatically change my writing style from my legal training to the conversational style of blogging. But I want readers to feel as if I’m talking to them as a friend so they can feel comfortable about tech. The idea of tech can be intimidating to many, if not most, people, so I want to bring them into the world in a warm and friendly way. I do think a conversational style can help with that and no one has complained about that yet!
I hope you continue to smile, discover and understand through The Wonder of Tech. You rock, Nanette!
Happy anniversary, Carolyn! Your posts have been so informative and, sometimes even life changing!
Hi Penny, Thank you very much. I’m so glad that The Wonder of Tech has helped you. I appreciate you taking the time to sharing this with us.
Oh Congratulations on completing seven years. Keep up the good work.
Hi Amit, Thank you for your good wishes and for being a Wonder of Tech reader!