Understanding Times & Trends from Blogger Stats

What are the topics that believers around the world are interested in? Are there any changes overtime? Using this blog as example, using Blogger stats, I can actually tell you! (note: this is just a subset. The result depends on what the subjects that I wrote about in this blog). Google introduced access statistics for blogger sometime in June 2009 so I have about 6 months worth of stats with a sample size of about 5000+ reads.

The Top 10 Topics
'Overcomers' overtook 'Grace' as the most read topic in Dec. Here are the top ten:

The Meaning of "More than Conquerors"                      737 Pageviews

"Grace is Unmerited Favor" - This Common Definitio... 685 

Knowledge Tree of Good and Evil                                 359 

Christian Transformation & Growth -The Unified Mod...  178 

KP#1 Kingdom Principles - Work Them                         172               

The Meaning & Power of Holy Communion                   109 

KP#0 Kingdom Laws & Principles                                  100 

Victorious Life - Armor of God                                        68 

BJ#0 Business According to Jesus                                   46 

If Adam knows I-Ching, he would not have sinned           36 

It is heart warming to me that believers  are interested in becoming "More than Conquerors", "Grace", "Right and Wrong" , "Spiritual Growth" and "Kingdom Principles".  These are important topics to know well in this challenging times.

Countries of Origins

The Stats also tell us the countries of the readers.  Here is the top 10, United States, Singapore, Canada, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Netherlands,South Africa, Philippines, Latvia, Australia. The countries that strike me are Nigeria, Latvia! The list from my FBSG Friday Bible Study Group is even more interesting from me. United States, Singapore, Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Latvia, Netherlands, Ukraine, Germany. It includes Russia, Latvia, Ukraine. If I pick month instead of 'all time', I get countries like Slovenia, France, Sweden, Bhutan. This tell me that my posts are influencing people around the world and that I must take extra care in writing my posts to ensure correctness and ease of understanding.

The Technology Trends

If I look at the Stats on Browsers, I find that the majority of readers use 

Internet Explorer 2,564 (48%)
Firefox 1,397 (26%)
Safari 770 (14%)
Chrome 346 (6%)
Opera 83 (1%)
Java 24 (<1%)
Mobile 18 (<1%)

By picking "Month", I can get lateness (month) trend vs the all time (6 month old)

Internet Explorer 521 (50%)
Safari 225 (21%)
Firefox 179 (17%)
Chrome 82 (7%)
Opera 19 (1%)

The change is in Safari (Mac?) browser overtaking Firefox to 2nd position. Is Mac replacing Window? 

Looking at the Pageviews by OS, give us a better answer:

The 6 month vs the Last Month 

	6 month		last month
Windows	4,218	-80%	773	-74%
Macintosh	768	-14%	216	-20%
Unix	74	-1%	13	-1%
iPhone	68	-1%	11	-1%
Linux	38	(<1%)	10	(<1%)
BlackBerry	30	(<1%)	8	(<1%)
iPad	21	(<1%)	1	(<1%)
Nokia	10	(<1%)	2	(<1%)
Samsung	7	(<1%)
iPod	7	(<1%)	1	(<1%)

We can see the rise of the Mac, and the Smart Phone devices like iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry. Some major player is slowing loosing the desktop and the smart devices war. 

This is just a odd topic for your information. Intelligence collection can go through many different ways. Decision making can be improved with data collection. We rely on the Holy Spirit to guide us. But God's working in this real physical world will leave behind traces that we could pick up to confirm his leading. For those that did not seek after the Holy Spirit first, perhaps, some trends can help convince them.

Special Note: This is not post to endorse any vendors or OSs or Browsers. They are just examples to show data collection and discovering trends. Jesus told us to be aware for the signs for the times.