It's really great to see Wikipedia highlighted as a source for news and current events. It's rare that people fully recognize the degree to which the "encyclopedia" is actually very good at trending news information. That said, the report paints a rosy picture that, strategically speaking, may not be cause for celebration.
Remember that, when looking at pageviews, we're a little over 40% mobile. Most other major Internet properties are now primarily mobile, and that's where most media consumption is even in once desktop-centric markets like the US.(1) Has Dario or anyone done an update on the traffic analysis from 2014,(2) where we concluded that declining desktop traffic in mature markets like the US was not being offset by mobile web? What's the current state of the world when it comes to Wikipedia mobile traffic, overall and broken down by app vs. mobile web? It seems obvious that part of the reason Wikipedia is so popular on mobile web is because we're an odd duck -- Wikimedia is one of the only top media orgs not doing any kind of app upsell at all on mobile web. The vast majority of major Internet properties heavily push app installs and usage to varying degrees of aggressiveness. This directly sacrifices mobile web traffic for a longterm gain in reader retention. The linked report shows that Wikipedia app users are much more engaged -- avg time spent per person in the Wikipedia app is more than double that of mobile web, according to their data -- but the number of app users is ridiculously tiny, relatively speaking.(3) In commercial apps, prioritizing long term retention of app users is good for a business. They can then be converted to subscribers, purchase in-app upgrades, or click on ads. In the Wikimedia context, greater mobile retention and time spent could be used to teach people to contribute, and to facilitate less aggressive forms of mobile fundraising than we've previously had to do. Not to mention providing readers with faster direct access to knowledge, and doing a better job of teaching mobile-first US in emerging markets what Wikipedia is. Neglecting to show people the value of the apps will help grow mobile web traffic in the short term, but in the long run may leave us entirely dependent on search (i.e. Google) or simply not growing readers, despite millions of people still coming online via mobile. In the report data you can see that most of the US news sites mentioned are dependent on Facebook, even if they have an app. Unlike them, Wikipedia has an opportunity to get away from being dependent on another source for readers, and be one of the primary apps that every person on the planet uses, alongside Facebook, messaging tools, and similar. Right now, we're squandering that opportunity, and it's going to get harder to change as time goes on. 1. http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/21/majority-of-digital-media-consumption-now-takes-place-in-mobile-apps/ 2. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2014_Readership_Update,_WMF_Metrics_Meeting,_December.pdf 3. https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to/news-goes-mobile-how-people-use-smartphones-to-access-information-53ccb850d80a#.ofpb8txup On Wed, May 11, 2016 at 12:50 PM Michael Peel <em...@mikepeel.net> wrote: > Isn't it time to start moving to responsive mediawiki templates ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design), rather than having > a separate mobile interface/URL? > > For a practical example, see the BBC News website ( > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news), which is the same website on all devices, it > just rescales the content/navigation/layout to suit the device. (Try > resizing your web browser on your computer to the size of a mobile web > browser to see what I mean.) > > Thanks, > Mike > > > On 11 May 2016, at 20:36, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > Hoi, > > It is wonderful to see how we have evolved.. Does anyone remember the > good > > old days when it was an application totally and utterly outside of > > MediaWiki? > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > > On 11 May 2016 at 20:33, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Forwarding since this may be of general interest regarding Wikipedia > >> readership. > >> > >> Thanks Tilman! > >> > >> Pine > >> > >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > >> From: Tilman Bayer <tba...@wikimedia.org> > >> Date: Wed, May 11, 2016 at 10:23 AM > >> Subject: [WikimediaMobile] "Among mobile sites, Wikipedia reigns in > terms > >> of popularity" > >> To: mobile-l <mobil...@lists.wikimedia.org> > >> Cc: Wikimedia developers <wikitec...@lists.wikimedia.org>, Analytics > Team > >> - > >> Internal <analytics-inter...@lists.wikimedia.org> > >> > >> > >> New study (US only) by the Knight Foundation: > >> https://medium.com/mobile-first-news-how-people-use-smartphones-to , > >> summarized here: > >> > >> > http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/05/people-love-wikipedia/482268/ > >> > >> "People spent more time on Wikipedia’s mobile site than any other news > >> or information site in Knight’s analysis, about 13 minutes per month > >> for the average visitor. CNN wasn’t too far behind, at 9 minutes 45 > >> seconds per month. BuzzFeed clocked in third at 9 minutes 21 seconds > >> per month. (BuzzFeed, however, slays both CNN and Wikipedia in time > >> spent with the sites’ apps, compared with mobile websites. BuzzFeed > >> users devote more than 2 hours per month to its apps, compared with > >> about 46 minutes among CNN app users and 31 minutes among Wikipedia > >> app loyalists.) > >> > >> Another way to look at Wikipedia’s influence: Wikipedia reaches almost > >> one-third of the total mobile population each month, according to > >> Knight’s analysis, which used data from the audience-tracking firm > >> Nielsen." > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Tilman Bayer > >> Senior Analyst > >> Wikimedia Foundation > >> IRC (Freenode): HaeB > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Mobile-l mailing list > >> mobil...@lists.wikimedia.org > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
