There is gold in those System Stats

This morning I had a brain jolt when reading “Seth Godin’s Blog” where he argues that Firefox users are a group with distinct characteristics and tendencies. He calls Firefox users “a self-selected group of clickers and sneezers and power users.” He backs this characterization with some interesting observations and facts from their use of Squidoo. (one of his brilliant ideas). He writes:

“Example: 25% of the visitors we track at Squidoo use Firefox, which is not surprising. But 50% of the people who actually build pages on the site are Firefox users. Twice as many.”

“This is true of bloggers, of Twitter users, of Flickr users… everywhere you look, if someone is using Firefox, they’re way more likely to be using other power tools online. In order to use Firefox, you need to be confident enough to download and use a browser that wasn’t the default when you first turned on your computer. That’s an empowering thing to do. It isolates you as a different kind of web user.”

I missed that one. I must be honest the last time I worried about system stats was in the snail pace days of dial-up. I am going to look at the system stats of all my clients. Way to go Seth and thanks for opening up a pot of data gold. I can see a new love for system stats in the land of marketing.

Do yourself a favor and layout a few dollars and buy Seth Godin’s latest book Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? Read it and go for the brain jolt- this book is packed with edgy insight. Not only do you see the lights but Seth revisits some of his most popular marketing advice.

Is Seth onto something? Share your thoughts on the characteristics of Firefox users.