2006: A look back

It's hard to believe the first week of 2007 is nearly over. I sat down this morning and was looking back at some of the statistics for BigBlueBall from the past year. What were the most popular instant messaging stories? Where in the world are our readers coming from? What I found might surprise you.

Top 5 IM Stories

1. Connecting Google Talk to AIM, MSN & Yahoo was the most popular story at BigBlueBall this year. Why? Well, it seems that a lot of people like the clean, unclustered look of Google Talk, but still need to communicate with their friends on other IM networks. Unfortunately, this is still a hack that doesn't work reliably. I've tried it, but I abandoned the approach eventually because it worked very unreliably.
2. Google Talk Gets Graphical Smilieys came in at #2, surprising me. Technically, this should be titled Google Chat gets graphical smileys; they still haven't made their way over into Google Talk.
3. Lots of New ICQ5 Skins was the third post popular post. This one really surprised me, because ICQ is not generally the hottest topic at BigBlueBall. And the topic was posted in 2005!
4. eMessenger Becomes eBuddy was fourth. Web messengers in general seem to be a hot topic these days, as evidenced by the buzz surrounding Meebo and the upcoming Trillian Astra web edition.
5. Windows Vista Beta Download (which was reported and posted at many sites all over the net) was the fifth most popular topic. Amazingly, people can't seem to wait to get their hands on Vista. I installed Vista RC1 on one of my PCs, and while there are some nice improvements, it is not something I am in a hurry to get -- at least not until I get a more powerful PC.

Top Forums

The top IM forums at BigBlueBall didn't really provide any surprises, at least not to me. They were all very close, but this year, Yahoo came out on top.

1. Yahoo! Messenger
2. MSN/Windows Live Messenger
3. AIM

Where in the world?

BigBlueBall readers come predominently from the USA, but the Geo-map shows the picture much more clearly.



Most of our readers find BigBlueBall via Google.


Firefox Gains Ground on Internet Explorer

Yes, IE is still the browser of choice for most of our readers, but Firefox has made some strong inroads. Opera actually shows better-than-average representation as well, showing that BigBlueBall readers are generally more tech-savvy.



The Year Ahead

Good things are coming! We are getting ready to relaunch the BigBlueBall Bulletin with our first edition of 2007. Watch your inbox next week! The BigBlueBall podcast is being expanded to include interviews with IM insiders and industry experts (as well as your questions, tips and rants). And we are working on a site revamp that will let our IM Teams go crazy and take over the IM Centers, making them into something really useful -- sort of an extreme makeover by a bunch of talented, knowledgeable and passionate IM fans.

And we'll likely have some new contests and other fun surprises along the way.

Thanks for being a part of BigBlueBall, and on behalf of the entire staff, have an incredible New Year!