Web Standards, Accessibility & More

I thought it would be interesting to post some statistical information from Feedburner on my podcast and blog about web accessibility, Web Axe. It had been several weeks since I last checked the stats, and it was a pleasant surprise to see some growth.

The stats are for Thursday, July 10, 2008 and shows one of Web Axe’s highest subscriber rates of 746 (an approximation of how many times your feed has been requested in a 24-hour period). What I find most interesting is the different types of feed readers being used and how popular they are.  Google and iTunes top the list. Google feed readers (Google Reader or iGoogle) count for 32%, and iTunes for 30% (17% Mac and 13% Windows). Netvibes, my favorite RSS reader, was next at 10%.

I read numerous RSS feeds, mostly related to front-end web development. But there are a few that I read that are not tech-related…

• Most People Are DJs – music and entertainment podcast
• Blaugh – comic of the blogosphere
• Word of the Day – from Dictionary.com
• I don’t like you in that way – celebrity dirt
• My photos on Flickr!

By the way, I use NetVibes, an awesome personalized “home page” which can not only read and organize RSS feeds, but also blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, and game widgets!

Google recently purchased the master RSS feed utility Feedburner. In doing so, Google has made the PRO account and services now free to any user; there was previously a fee for the upgrade. This is great news for folks with blogs and podcasts because you can now do more and better statistical tracking of your readers/listeners. I just enabled the PRO service for my podcast/blog on web accessibility, Web Axe, so not all the data is there yet. But I’m looking forward to this great service! Thanks Google!