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Comment by davezuko | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting. I love to see how people deal with such tight deadlines, especially when they hit that eventual point mentioned in the article where things just sort of work out of sheer effort and it's too late to change their approach.

I am curious, however, about this comment: "We anticipated a higher proportion of the Colbert Report referrals would be using IE." What was the rationale behind this? Maybe I'm just wrong in my assumptions about the Colbert audience, but I'd definitely have expected a much more mobile-heavy (and non-IE) group.

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I'd say it was the simple assumption that the general internet audience uses IE at a much greater rate than typical XKCD visitors... And he does mention that they aren't TV watchers so didn't have any experience to draw on there.

We definitely should have known better. Admittedly none of us had watched television in front of a TV for quite some time. I think this was a case of focusing too sharply on what was broken vs. what our audience would consist of. xkcd's audience typically slants away from IE, so we anticipated the TV influx would be more average. That being said, the record high 6% IE numbers achieved didn't quite justify the time spent. ;)

The big problem with browser stats is that they are averaged over a day or month. Maybe not an issue with a global audience, but for a local audience you find desktop use is mostly limited to between 8-6 while people are at work. Mobile spikes during the morning and late afternoon commutes and tapers off into evening. Tablets have a smaller morning/afternoon spike and gradually pick up in the evening. This is fairly consistent over a number of .com.au sites I have analysed mobile traffic for.

So, at the time you're running your evening TV advertisement or PR spot it's 80% mobile, not the 25% the stats tell you.

He mentioned in the article that it was live data (like Chartbeat or GA Real-Time) they were looking at, not aggregate (like regular GA).

Nevertheless, you're correct, and watching the peaks and valleys and plateaus between the different platforms is incredibly interesting to analyze.

Also found that decision strange, I would've assumed the average viewer would pull out their phone (Chrome or Safari) and check the site since nobody has a desktop or laptop anymore. I look like a time traveler from the past wandering the streets with my antiquated IBM thinkpad.

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