Engadget: now AOL’s largest iPhone magnet
We don’t usually get very granular about traffic stats (I find that conversation kind of trite and even a little gauche), but you can imagine my surprise when the following iPhone usage chart hit my inbox this week. (Okay, I admit, I wasn’t that surprised.) Throughout AOL’s extensive and heavily trafficked content network, Engadget has the most pages served to users on iPhones by a pretty significant margin. To put that in context, the absolute monster that is AOL News (number two on the graph) will do some 10-15x our page views on any given day. Dayumn. Still, I’m resistant to do an iPhone specific version of the site — if it’s supposed to be “the real internet in your pocket” why design a version specifically for it, you know? What do you think?
Kerching! Bet you cant wait for bonus time!
On a serious note…good going…you run a great site and have a great team. Keep up the good work.
Chris
Comment by Chris McGuire — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 @ 7:28 pm
“I find that conversation kind of trite and even a little gauche”
Amen to that Ryan, trumpeting stats displays the worst kind of insecurity. If your site and your team are doing the best they can and producing great (and profitable) work, then there’s no need to parade around going ‘look how great we are’. Having said that I do enjoy hearing that the macworld keynote got x million pageviews each year, if only to go ‘dammm!’
I dont think you need an iphone specific site, mainly because it’s a fairly non-interactive site. Google reader or facebook have a lot more clicks in terms of navigation, whereas (for me at least) reading engadget is more of a scrolling exercise, with very few clicks.
Comment by Jeff — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 @ 7:51 pm
well an iphone site just makes it more user friendly !!
personally i prefer to use my google reader when looking at engadget/any other blog on my iphone. I like that Engadget gives us the whole article too unlike other sites who are just giving a blurb, that’s annoying. I know they want us to come to the site and click on ads but, still, annoying.
Comment by bob sakamano — Wednesday, March 12, 2008 @ 9:09 pm
To me, an iPhone web app is about speed.
More often then not if I’m near WiFi then I’ll just use my computer to hit Engadget. And if I’m out and about waiting in a line somewhere, the last thing I want to do is wait for the entire site to load.
Comment by Ben Drawbaugh — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 7:17 am
So, the flip-flop between the iPhone stats and the overall online stats (for AOL news and Engadget) seems to indicate that the iPhone crowd leans toward gadget-love. Could have guessed that, but it is still interesting that the iPhone has that much “geek cred” in a way, and it is not entirely mainstreamed.
Ben said:
“More often then not if I’m near WiFi then I’ll just use my computer to hit Engadget. And if I’m out and about waiting in a line somewhere, the last thing I want to do is wait for the entire site to load.”
What, no Adblock on the iPhone? :0)
On that off-topic topic, Ryan, I have noticed that the number of ads being blocked on Engadget is down from 18 to 11. Has there been a conscious choice to reduce the load or just the cycles of site? I might even try the page with Adblock turned off (as I do with most other sites I go to, I got Adblock in the first place so that I could visit Engadget again after it got too slow for my older system). Regardless, if it is a policy decision, I appreciate it!
Comment by Vance — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 10:29 am
Vance, I’ve been working really hard to help winnow down the total number of ads on the site. Somewhere along the way over — especially over the last year — things got pretty ad laden. While we obvious need those ads to survive since that’s our only source of income, it’s definitely a bit much.
So we’re still working things out on the new ad placements; ultimately I think we’ll probably be slightly more ad-heavy than other sites in our space, but we also publish our full stories on the front page (requiring fewer clicks / pages) so I think it’ll even out.
Comment by Ryan Block — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 11:41 am
Very good, and I appreciate the transparency. You have earned our trust over the years and I agree entirely that ads are appropriate and, as an Engadget reader, I want to see you guys make as much money as possible! I was at an impasse, though, since I really could not effectively visit the site with my system. I think I will try removing Adblock and see how it goes. I am perfectly willing to wait a reasonable load time for the quality of content you guys consistently put up.
Comment by Vance — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 11:58 am
Ryan, just some anecdotal numbers: with Adblock on, the main page of Engadget loads in 5 seconds. With it turned off, it takes 15 seconds to load. Still a wait, but not nearly as much as it had been.
Comment by Vance — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
One of the things we’ve started doing is loading all our ads into iframes, this speeds things up and makes sure content isn’t dependent on ads loading. That will get better with time.
Comment by Ryan Block — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Yes, I noticed that. Before, the entire page was “stuck” and I couldn’t scroll until most of it had loaded. Now, even though it still takes a bit to load, I can start reviewing the text pretty quickly. Good move there. As I scroll during loading, I will still get an occasional hesitation, but very “do-able”. Thanks!
Comment by Vance — Thursday, March 13, 2008 @ 4:00 pm
Reminiscent of the days when Engadget was among the top podcasts on iTunes.
Comment by Ross Rubin — Thursday, March 20, 2008 @ 5:18 pm
I know it’s supposed to be the internet in your pocket.. Besides Adobe Flash, what else doesn’t work with the iPhone?
Comment by Ryan Singer — Saturday, March 22, 2008 @ 3:03 pm
Normally I’d agree with your assessment of the “real internet in your pocket” way web pages should be for the iPhone. But in the case of Engadget I’d have to make an exception for a couple reasons.
1) Loading Engadget over EDGE sucks…I know I know the 3G version is coming
2) Depending on how big the Engadget page is, sometimes it’ll crash safari
3) You could still make an iPhone version without making too many comprises. Engadget is, after all, just a news site. All the page needs is mostly text and maybe the article’s image slimmed down.
Comment by Martin — Tuesday, March 25, 2008 @ 3:44 am