Download Stats & Missing Data

According to Google Analytics' new "snot graph" tool, the top three downloads in Modeling these days are, in order: EMF, UML2, UML2 Tools.

OK, no big surprise there. But what's really surprising is that people are still downloading zips. Isn't it easier to get your bits via Update? Isn't that why we provide you, the community, with over 20 Modeling update sites (three per project), so you can pick and choose what features to install, rather than downloading & unpacking zips? (Not to mention the countless other sites provided by DSDP, WTP, BIRT, DLTK, DTP, Mylyn, PDT, Equinox, Eclipse, GEF...)

Hell, with the advent of Eclipse 3.4, you can now even update the platform itself, so the Eclipse experience need only be one zip + a ton of multi-threaded updates. Say what you will about p2 (and I've said my share) but isn't it faster and easier than having to download zips?

I can understand being stuck on a platform version from a while ago, but with Eclipse 3.5 only 4 months away (yikes!), and e4 due next year, should anyone still be using Eclipse 3.0 or 3.1 and EMF 2.0 or 2.1? You're missing out on over three years of new development!

What's even more bizarre to me is that when maintenance releases are available, people still download the point-zero releases. Are we wasting our time doing maintenance? Should we be focusing on the next release instead? (In related news, Ganymede SR2 is just around the corner. Is everyone ready for what will be the final chapter for the Eclipse 3.4 stack?)

Of course the one glaring hole in all this data are the numbers around how many update jars are downloaded. If you'd like to see this resolved, have a look at bugs 239668 and 187968 and vote accordingly. It's really depressing to think that since September 15 we've only had 150,000 downloads (100,000 unique) when in 2006 we broke 1,000,000 downloads for 2006 on December 1 of that year, averaging just under 100,000 downloads a month.

Either the popularity of EMF - and of Modeling - has waned by two thirds, or we need a better way to capture stats.

50,000 Zips

Since turning on Google Analytics for tracking Modeling project zips on September 15, we've gotten over 50,000 pageviews (33,000 unique) of the download tracker. While this doesn't necessarily mean every one of those hits resulted in a download, it certainly shows a lot of interest in downloading EMF, UML2, UML2 Tools, GMF, Query, OCL, and XSD, to name but a few of the more than two dozen Modeling Project components.

Unfortunately, this only scratches the surface -- most of our downloads come from EPP bundles and update sites. But thanks to bug 239668, we will one day be able to track downloads done via p2. If download stats interest you, please vote for bug 239668.

Where in the world is Modeling Sandiego?

A couple days ago, I pointed out some stats about Popular Eclipse Projects.

Today, let's look at some more detailed stats about the Modeling Project itself, thanks to Google Analytics, which has been installed at on www.eclipse.org since July 19, 2008.

In just under two months since we turned on stat tracking, we've gotten over 90,000 Visits & 300,000 Pageviews from over 40,000 Visitors hailing from over 150 Countries!

View larger images

Not included in the screenshots above are some interesting stats about user agents -- what people are using to visit the Modeling Project's site. As you'd probably expect, it's mostly Firefox, IE, and Opera. But would you believe five Playstation hits? Would you believe a Nokia N80, two SonyEricsson phones, but no shoe phones? How about over 1000 hits from Google Chrome users? (I'm so jealous there's no Chrome for Linux yet!) Here's the complete list:

Rank   User-Agent   Hits   (%)
1.  Firefox  56,037  (59.17%)
2.  Internet Explr 30,649  (32.36%)
3.  Opera  2,745  (2.90%)  
4.  Safari  2,297  (2.43%)  
5.  Mozilla  1,373  (1.45%)  
6.  Chrome  1,174 (1.24%)  Already in the #6 spot!
7.  Konqueror 319  (0.34%)  
8.  SeaMonkey 29  (0.03%)  
9.  (not set) 18  (0.02%)  
10.  Mozilla Compatible Agent 12  (0.01%)  
11.  Netscape 12  (0.01%)
12.  Camino  8  (0.01%)
13.  Galeon  8  (0.01%)
14.  Playstation 3 4
15.  Googlebot 2
16.  MyBrowser; MyWindows 2
17.  NetFront 2
18.  SmallProxy 3.4.1 Free 2
19.  Axis2 1
20.  DoCoMo 1
21.  Jakarta Commons-HttpClient 1
22.  MSIE 7.0 1
23.  NETSCAPE FOREVER 1
24.  NokiaN80 1
25.  OpenWave 1
26.  Playstation Portable 1
27.  SonyEricssonW910i 1
28.  X-Browser 1
29.  aaa 1
30.  iexplorer 7.0 WebWasher 3.4 1
31.  openwave 1
32.  preview 1
33.  sonyericssonk750i 1

---

Wondering how you can track your eclipse.org site's stats using your own Google Analytics account? Here's how:

  # see http://wiki.eclipse.org/Using_Phoenix#Google_Analytics
  $App->SetGoogleAnalyticsTrackingCode("UA-2345678-9"); # use your UA account