[mythtv-users] Interesting results for MythTV on Google Trends

Daniel Kristjansson danielk at cuymedia.net
Sat Feb 20 03:02:29 UTC 2010


On Wed, 2010-02-17 at 11:58 -0500, Matt S. wrote:
> I rediscovered Google Trends today, after forgetting about it for a
> few years, and was playing around with various topics.  I thought it'd
> be fun to see some data around mythtv related searches.
> 
> "MythTV" search trends since 2004:
> http://www.google.com/trends?q=mythtv&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
> 
> You can see that the "hay day" for seemed to have been in 2005, but
> has slowly declined since then.  In 2005, the search index rating for
> MythTV was ~1.5.  However, it's now reaching the ~.4 to ~.5 levels on
> the index. I was wondering "why" that might have been, and it's hard
> to speculate, but decided to throw some comparison data into the
> mix...

There was a big spike for 0.20 in 2006, almost as high as the one
for 0.17 in 2005

MythTV's popularity graph is eerily similar to Slashdot's popularity:
 http://www.google.com/trends?q=mythtv%2C
+slashdot&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

It looks like we've totally crushed the first commercially
successful DVR (ReplayTV):
http://www.google.com/trends?q=mythtv%2C
+ReplayTV&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

And our direct competitor, Freevo:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=mythtv%2C
+Freevo&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

And we're not in as heavy decline as TiVo. However, XBMC has
been in MythTV's shadow for years but ever since the recession
started it has been on the rise and it now surpasses TiVo:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=MythTV%2C+TiVo%2C+XBMC%2C
+recession&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

There is a downward slant in all topics which means that while
MythTV is no longer the hot new thing it's popularity in the
blogs hasn't really fallen by 6dB, more like 3dB. To prove the
point just enter a few generic terms:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=Washington%2C
+London&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
This may be due to the extension of the web and the blogosphere
to a more varied demographic since the middle of the last decade,
but I honestly have no idea.

-- Daniel



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