The World loves CMS, CMS Report loves Singapore
By Bryan - Posted on 28 June 2007
I must confess, I really don't fully understand how the Internet ranking systems actually work. Ranking systems such as Google's PageRank and Alexa's Traffic Rankings seem to use a mystery of statistical analysis, algorithms, and a sprinkle of voodoo calculus to come up with the numbers they do. Although most people lack the understanding to how these numbers are derived it is still fun to watch those rankings change from day to day. For example, since the Fall of 2006 I've seen the rankings for CMSReport.com change from 830,790 to around a steady 90,000.
One interesting tidbit of information I've seen through the Alexa Traffic details is that visitors from the United States to my site currently only make up around 40% of my traffic. In fact, nearly 20% of my site's traffic comes from Singapore, followed by the United Kingdom (7%), Germany (4%), and Australia (4%). If these numbers are correct, that means that the majority of visitors to my site are from outside of the United States. I find that a little surprising but I think it does shows you how technologically advanced the rest of the world has come.
Sadly though, I also think these numbers reflect observations I've made in the past. The average person in the United States is less interested in being educated about information technology, information systems, business processes, and content management. When I was in graduate school I was amazed by the quality of research on information systems that came out of Europe and Asia, while here in the United States many on the business side don't seem to get IT.
When it comes to Web content management systems I think in part the problem is that the United States was an early adopter of the Internet. A huge number of Websites were developed based solely on HTML and static pages. While companies, organizations, and individuals struggle to convert their existing static page sites into sites that utilizes CMS...their counterparts in other countries are buildings sites for the first time. It's a lot easier to start something new with the latest technology than migrating something from old technology to a more modern technology. As an example lets take a look at another piece of communication technology, the telephone.
Here in the United States almost everyone has the plain old telephones with copper wire connecting their residence to the phone company's central office. People are moving over to wireless cell phones, but the wired telephone still dominates in the United States. If you go to other places in the world that you don't normally associate with having the telephone you'll find a different story. Although residents of these other countries may not have telephone at home, many of their country's citizens do have a cell phones in their pocket. Those countries IT people don't have to convince their people to leave old technology behind and replace it with new technology when they've never had it before.
So those are some of my theories to why CMS Report is just as popular outside the United States as it is in the U.S. However, perhaps it would be better for me to ask those visiting from countries outside the U.S, why do you visit this site? And if you're from Singapore may I say your country has good taste for which sites to visit on the Internet, thank you!
One interesting tidbit of information I've seen through the Alexa Traffic details is that visitors from the United States to my site currently only make up around 40% of my traffic. In fact, nearly 20% of my site's traffic comes from Singapore, followed by the United Kingdom (7%), Germany (4%), and Australia (4%). If these numbers are correct, that means that the majority of visitors to my site are from outside of the United States. I find that a little surprising but I think it does shows you how technologically advanced the rest of the world has come.
Sadly though, I also think these numbers reflect observations I've made in the past. The average person in the United States is less interested in being educated about information technology, information systems, business processes, and content management. When I was in graduate school I was amazed by the quality of research on information systems that came out of Europe and Asia, while here in the United States many on the business side don't seem to get IT.
When it comes to Web content management systems I think in part the problem is that the United States was an early adopter of the Internet. A huge number of Websites were developed based solely on HTML and static pages. While companies, organizations, and individuals struggle to convert their existing static page sites into sites that utilizes CMS...their counterparts in other countries are buildings sites for the first time. It's a lot easier to start something new with the latest technology than migrating something from old technology to a more modern technology. As an example lets take a look at another piece of communication technology, the telephone.
Here in the United States almost everyone has the plain old telephones with copper wire connecting their residence to the phone company's central office. People are moving over to wireless cell phones, but the wired telephone still dominates in the United States. If you go to other places in the world that you don't normally associate with having the telephone you'll find a different story. Although residents of these other countries may not have telephone at home, many of their country's citizens do have a cell phones in their pocket. Those countries IT people don't have to convince their people to leave old technology behind and replace it with new technology when they've never had it before.
So those are some of my theories to why CMS Report is just as popular outside the United States as it is in the U.S. However, perhaps it would be better for me to ask those visiting from countries outside the U.S, why do you visit this site? And if you're from Singapore may I say your country has good taste for which sites to visit on the Internet, thank you!
About this CMS Enthusiast
Bryan Ruby is the owner and editor for CMS Report. He founded CMSReport.com in 2006 on the belief that information technologists, website owners, and web developers desired visiting sites where they could learn about content management systems without the sales pitch. Outside of his late night blogging hours, he is the Information Technology Officer for a field office in the federal government.
Comments
#1 I'm from Singapore ;) But
#2 Interesting
Perhaps no matter what country you are from...those of us that do understand CMS as well as information systems in general are frustrated with others that do not have as good of an understanding.