Re: FLASH: Percentage of Flash?

[John Dowdell]

At 11:27 AM 10/27/98, Brad Merritt wrote:

>My employers are curious about the percentage of people with the Flash

>plug-in so we can tell clients about the user base and what not. Does

>anyone know the answer or even an approximation. I can only seem to find

>Macromedia saying that "4.1 million people download a month", but no real

>stats.


I'm not sure, Brad.


Ben Dillon (Flash product management team) recently said in an interview

that there have been more Flash downloads than there are web browsers,

because of the multiple versions, multiple installations. Even such basic

figures as the number of people on the internet have great variance.


Right now we can precisely measure completed downloads, and this is a huge

number. We also know (roughly) the number of new computers sold each month,

and these all have Flash preinstalled. Things like operating system CDs and

browser CDs and AOL discs are harder to usefully measure, because although

they likely have unique distribution numbers, we're not certain how many

people actually install from those CDs (you might have four AOL discs lying

around the desk, for instance).


One number our customers' clients have asked for is the number of unique

users. RealNetworks is able to achieve this through their subscription

basis to the RealPlayer, and Apple has also moved to this model with

QuickTime Pro. The number of unique users can help in some client

scenarios.


What other types of stats would you find most useful? This is what Eric

Wittman was asking for in the "Developer Support Brochure" thread here

earlier today. He requests your needs as email, but it could be helpful to

duplicate this to the list as well, to get the juices flowing.


Precisely what kind of numbers would you find most useful in your

day-to-day work...?


tx,

jd





John Dowdell, Macromedia Tech Support, San Francisco CA US


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