Nokia Conversations traffic is up by 38%

Published by Heidi Lemmetyinen on June 4, 2012

Model globe on a keyring

The traffic on Nokia Conversations has been growing very nicely during the first five months of 2012. Compared to the second half of 2011, our global traffic is up by 38%. Traffic coming from the US has grown by a whopping 99%.

Together with our regional editions (China, Russia, Latin America, Finland) we are now getting about 1.2 million visits every month. The top 10 countries in terms of traffic volumes are India, USA, UK, Finland, Philippines, Germany, Pakistan, Australia, Canada and Malaysia.

When you consider the population, our Finnish blog is the most popular regional edition. Obviously Finland is a special case for Nokia!

One of my favourite moments in recent weeks was publishing the Lumia 900 hammer video, which now has more than 2.2 million views on YouTube. Our quality guys in San Diego made the video, and I had to exchange stern emails with the Legal Department before we could publish it (they were concerned people might try it at home).

We launched a new layout and design for Conversations last October and made some tweaks to it in April. Traffic growth indicates we’re on the right track with usability. While I’d love to take personal credit for the huge growth in our US traffic, it’s probably more due to the fact that we now have exciting products like the Nokia Lumia 900 and 710 on that market.

Conversations stories reflect Nokia’s strategy, which means we focus heavily on Lumia.  Another key topic is Asha, especially as we have many readers in areas where people use feature phones. Now that the Nokia PureView 808 is rolling out to the market, we’ll be talking a lot about its brilliant camera technology. There are also a lot of dedicated Symbian and N9 users out there, and naturally we want to cater to their needs as well.

I would like to thank our readers for keeping the site alive by visiting it, sharing our stories and leaving us comments and feedback.

Image credit: Horia Varlan.

Comments

  • droopyar

    Hi Heidi, yes, please put more information on New Nokia 808 PureView running Symbian. Hope Nokia launch it worldwide as it is the best camera phone in the market today and for the next years. Could you add direct download links to new Microsoft tools for Symbian? (word, excel, etc.) To install them standalone. Thanks.

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Thanks, I’ll ask the editors to look into this!

      • http://twitter.com/alvetica Al Pavangkanan

         Looking forward to the 808 launch in the US

      • Samarth Singh

        Hi Ma’am,

        Pureview is about to be released it seems, but we got very less confirmed info:
        I don’t even know whether the Mini/MHL HDMI port has 720p output or 1080p? no info on its slow motion recording capability (HARDWARE-wise, I mean)… Also, Would love to know more about music (using 3.5mm jack) and camera capabilities of 808, when using inbuilt/ installed apps, etc.

        I request for a “Nokia 808 FAQ’s.” to be published, if possible by Mr. Damian Dinning, or anyone else. Kindly forward it Ma’am. Thanks.

        Before N8′s release, we got a lot of useful info on the N8, and that was worth appreciating. Thanks to Nokia staff for that.

    • C38S

      Info on the best way to import the 808 for areas where it won’t be released like Aus would be great too

  • http://www.twitter.com/KaizerAllen Kaizer Allen

    The only thing that’s missing right now is the old MobilePress plugin you used to have during the old days, pre-Metro layout. I think that one’s more convenient and fluid for phone usage. Hoping you guys will finally bring that back. Although I’m not using a feature phone, I think that’s going to benefit those who do. I remember reading through my old and trusty Nokia N78 with that layout and it works perfectly.

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Fair point, and definitely doable. Getting the mobile plugin fixed has been on my list for ages, but to be brutally honest I’ve just forgotten to pester our devs about it… I’ll make a mental note to remind them again!

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/K57SPYCDEOU6LAUC6X3WXIAUBY ColumA

    You should create one section where people/user can post their needs/inputs and more important, you should take them serious and then you will succeed for sure. I bought my Lumia 900 just on Saturday in Switzerland and very happy with it, but had a second thought if I should buy as there emerge many rumors that it won’t be upgraded to WP8. I saw so many people in blogs now waiting with their buy because of this rumor. If there won’t be an upgrade, this will kill all your efforts and you will then be for sure on the edge of bankruptcy, which will hit me hard as a shareholder, but as of now, I think you are on the right track.

    Why was there no big push for the Lumia900 release in Europe as you’ve done in US where it now sells quite well?

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Not a bad idea, actually. I guess we’ve been a bit hesitant to launch new channels, as Nokia already has tons of blogs, discussion forums, etc. – sometimes I wonder if there are too many!

      This site is supposed to be all about conversation with people who use our products. Even if we can’t always answer all the questions we get, rest assured that people at Nokia are reading and listening to your feedback very closely.

      As for the Lumia 900 Europe push, on Conversations we’ve let our US editors write about that phone, as we reckon most of those articles should serve Europeans as well. But if you think we should do more Europe-focused content around the Lumia 900, I’m definitely up for it. What kind of articles would you like to read about it?

      • http://profile.yahoo.com/K57SPYCDEOU6LAUC6X3WXIAUBY ColumA

        I only remember your Time-Square concert which got, I think, a lot of attention and afterwards the big roll out at AT&T stores. But in Europe, I think nobody took notice of your launch, thats my impression when I look around with friends and even when I bought my Lumia in the store, nothing pointed to the new arrival. If I didn’t had the intention to get one, I would have missed. Even the interviews with Stefan Pannenbecker were only brought in Online-issues and not in the sunday-papers. I think you do well in US & China, but you might miss Europe, there are so many that have turned away from Nokia on several reason, it will be hard to get them back, therefore you need special efforts here to bring all the new Fandroids back.  

        • URNumber6

          It’s almost inevitable NOKIA will lose it’s current smartphone customers as WP7 can not be viewed as an upgrade from Symbian.

          I think markets where NOKIA were strong before deprecating Symbian will be even more difficult for them now than new markets.

          Android is the only true alternative for a Symbian user.

          • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

            That is your opinion – we think just the opposite. A gentle reminder that you should stick to the topic; this post is about Conversations readership, not the future of operating systems. 

          • droopyar

             WP7.5 is not a good OS. No background process, no usb, and not updated to WP8 due to low CPU. So, hope nokia push also symbian brand with new 808 PureView

          • URNumber6

            Unfortunately for you NOKIA’s current sales figures suggest more people share my opinion than yours.

          • http://profile.yahoo.com/K57SPYCDEOU6LAUC6X3WXIAUBY ColumA

            I had an iPhone4 before my Lumia (my first Nokia!) and to be honest, WP7.5 is faster and easy to use, MixRadio (brilliant) and NokiaMaps is worth the money already. If I look at my sons Android, it’s pure chaos (kids might like that, but entrepreneurs not). I’m sure with the launch of Windows8, people will turn to WP8 and therefore to the nice designed handys from Nokia, no doubt about! One proof that this happens already is Heidi’s article which points to the increase of traffic here.

  • http://twitter.com/heendrik25 Hendrik

    No sorry, I’m not here because of your “exciting products like the Nokia Lumia 900 and 710 on that market”, I am here because of your exciting Symbian Devices and information about their updates like the great Belle update, FP1, 808 and so on.. :-)

    Greetings from Germany.

  • http://twitter.com/heendrik25 Hendrik

     And my question is if you are able to provide more information about the upcoming “Nokia Belle Refresh” Update for older Symbian^3 Devices like N8, C7 and so on. There are too many rumours all over the WWW that Carla is stopped and Symbian support is also stopped now.

    T

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      We’re commited to supporting Symbian until 2016.
      Right now that’s all I have to say around that topic. Whenever there are new SW updates for any of our products, you’ll be able to read about them first on Conversations.

      • http://twitter.com/heendrik25 Hendrik

         Thanks for your answer.
        I understand your statements and I’m ready to read them at Nokia Conversations blog.
        My wish is that you show this support of Symbian until 2016 here at Conversations, too. There are so many Lumia stories all over the website, but nearly none newer stories about Symbian devices. Hope you take this as an improvement suggestion and wish you a great week.

  • Jack Wang

    I like the Finnish Conversations blog interface better. Straightforward, clean, efficient, elegant, color-neutral, more readable fonts. It’s actually the old one before this dubious metro-ish redesign, and probably the reason it’s got better readership. It’s good to see that the old way of doing things at Nokia hasn’t been eradicated in pursuit of fashion, although the same cannot be said of Nokia hardware designs or Belle, sadly.

    There’s a reason I stopped going to Gizmodo which I preferred over Engadget. The interface, though ancient, is probably why Engadget could get away with sloppy writing, because Gizmodo messed up their web interface for most users to please iPad users.

    The same way Conversations screwed up, in my view. The narrow text columns, reinvent-the-wheel navigation widgets, and ill-matched unfinished color blocks, reeks of an IE-6 optimized website prototype that renders awkwardly in modern browsers.

    • frandom

      The Finnish version reminds me a bit of the old Conversations, definetly better than the current design here which is trying too hard to be cool and unique but just ends up as being confusing and messy.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NQJ2ZBGULJZA55XOLMX6BSI7EU Marcus

    Sorry for posting a technical issue here, but as this is related to the Conversations website itself, it kind of fits in with the subject of this post:

    I noticed that the format of the RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/NokiaConversations-Posts) has changed ever so slightly a few days ago. As a result, the XML content no longer starts at the beginning of the file, causing some applications to reject the feed as invalid XML.

    This means that the Conversations feed is, for example, currently not accessible with the Sage extension in Firefox. Perhaps this is worth passing on to the IT folks, to make sure that traffic can continue to rise further.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NQJ2ZBGULJZA55XOLMX6BSI7EU Marcus

    Sorry for posting a technical issue here, but as this is related to the Conversations website itself, it kind of fits in with the subject of this post:

    I noticed that the format of the RSS feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/NokiaConversations-Posts) has changed ever so slightly a few days ago. As a result, the XML content no longer starts at the beginning of the file, causing some applications to reject the feed as invalid XML.

    This means that the Conversations feed is, for example, currently not accessible with the Sage extension in Firefox. Perhaps this is worth passing on to the IT folks, to make sure that traffic can continue to rise further.

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Thanks for the feedback, Marcus! We’re aware of this problem. Our developers are based in the UK and right now they’re celebrating Jubilee. As soon as they’re back we’ll fix this annoying kink!

      • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NQJ2ZBGULJZA55XOLMX6BSI7EU Marcus

        Looks like Her Majesty’s loyal subjects have recovered from the long weekend and fixed the issue already. ;-)

        The feed works again for me. Thanks!

    • frandom

      I wondered why my N9 had stopped updating this feed, it last updated successfully last Tuesday

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1545600251 Vincent Fu

    Thanks for keeping us Symbian and N9 users, who have loved and stuck with Nokia for so long, in mind! Here’s to the future of Nokia! =D

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Thanks – the feeling is mutual ;)

  • steelicon

    Greetings Ms. Lemmetyinen!

    We may have different views, and we always agree to disagree sometimes in some matters, and even sometimes have some common ground, like our love for Nokia, its employees and people who make Nokia as it is, a technology as a way of life. Nokia has always brought people together, that is why I sincerely believe that Nokia should always remember its company slogan : Connecting People. It is all about people. Technology bringing people closer to each other.

    I hope you can discuss with your fellow workers to have a dedicated Symbian column. This should at least keep most of us happy until 2016.

    Thank you very much for your prompt and kind consideration.

    • http://conversations.nokia.com/ Heidi Lemmetyinen

      Thanks for your feedback! We in Conversations have tremendous respect for long-time Nokia fans, and whatever the next chapter in Nokia’s story will be, we want you to join us for the ride. We’ll put our collective thinking hat on and brainstorm some more Symbian stories. 

  • Samarth Singh

    India always has a special place for Nokia… and vice versa too, given that India would be one of the first countries to get Pureview.

    • steelicon

      With around 1.22 Billion in population, I hope India breaks records in sales for the Nokia 808 PureView RM-807. Go India! Go Asia! Let’s break some records for the RM-807!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000371847706 Ehtesham Shahzad

    When is nokia going to release its lumia devices in Pakistan?
    ~Ehtesham

  • http://www.omreddy.com/ Mahesh

    when is Nokia PureView 808 is rolling out to the market in india?? 

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  • http://twitter.com/Horia Horia

    I would like to see a weekly/monthly contest in this area.
    Your traffic will be up:-).
    Thanks.
    Horia
    ps. And some nice stories about mobile phone use on the beach:-)

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