Happy New Year! I just realized the other day that this blog turned 5 years old in 2016. It's been a lot of fun and has paid me back for my time in terms of building my brand and being a means to explore and learn new topics. I have plans to put more focus on my writing in 2017 and reduce the friction between starting with a blank page and hitting that "Publish" button.

Anyways! Here's a look back at 2016 on packetmischief.ca.

2016 YoY Overall

Hmm. Basically flat growth in terms of views and visitors. I feel like this is to be expected based on how much writing and promotion I did throughout the year. I can improve these numbers for 2017.

Just like last year, the new vs returning visitor numbers are basically unchanged.

2016 YoY Visitors

The 5 most popular posts in 2016 are:

2016 Most Popular Posts

Quick links:

And the top 5 posts in 2016 that were also written in 2016 are:

2016 Most Popular Posts Written in 2016

Quick links:

There was a change this year in the top 5 browsers: Microsoft's Edge browser bumped of Opera for the 5th place spot. Other than that, seems like Chrome is continuing its dominance as it was the only other browser in the top 5 to have any YoY growth.

2016 YoY Browsers

No real surprises in terms of operating systems. Another growth year for Android and another declining year for Linux (following its similar decline last year).

2016 YoY Operating Systems

The mobile operating system stats always make me smile ?. The Windows growth of almost 13% looks good until you compare it to last year's almost 61%. iOS' decline and Android's growth mimics last year's numbers and follows the industry numbers which shows iOS and Android numbers typically moving in opposite directions.

Maybe, just maybe, next year will finally see BlackBerry fall completely off the chart.

2016 YoY Mobile Operating Systems

Lastly, a little motivation for myself going into 2017: the vast, vast majority of incoming traffic is via direct means (bookmarks) or Google search. Only about 2% of incoming traffic is via social media channels. I can do better than that in 2017.

2016 Incoming Channels

Thanks again to everyone who reads, posts comments, and follows me on Twitter. I look forward to learning and sharing more in 2017! Big things are coming early in the new year. ?