Think You Know What Software Most People Use? Think Again.

A survey at relatively unknown site, Wakoopa shows that most people don’t conform to the ‘norms’ that are frequently given on many survey sites. The difference is the make-up of those responding, but also the fact that the survey is a compilation of real data taken by an installed data collection program, so that no interpretation (or misinterpretation) is possible.

While most people in these surveys are trying their best to be truthful (as long as the guarantee of anonymity is made), the mind is sometimes less than stellar at exact amounts of time spent on various activities.

from BetaNews

Ever wondered who the heck uses AOL’s proprietary software in 2009, or if anyone’s seriously still on Yahoo? A first-ever survey from Wakoopa holds the intriguing promise of looking primarily at the computer habits of People Like Us. For now, anyway.

Wakoopa, which provides a social-networking and application-search space for software users, garners its data through a (voluntary) desktop tracking program that clocks which apps users use and for how long, along with apps users recommend and share with each other. So far, over 75,000 users have installed the tracker.

Those users bear a striking resemblance to a lot of the people one finds hanging out here at Betanews. (The Wakoopa site puts it best: “We know what the cool kids use!”) Most (88%) are male, with an average age of just under 27, and 48% say they’re extremely proficient with computers and such. Just over two-fifths of the crew are US-based, with a quarter in the UK and Europe, 10% in Asia, and the rest… well, frankly, sometimes your reporter wonders where certain Betanews readers come from too. And 31% are feeling the current economic pinch, choosing to spend less than usual on software.

So what are our doppelgangers using? Well, the most popular app around, for both Mac and Windows users, is Firefox. Notice that says “most popular app,” not merely “most popular browser”; the second most popular application is also a browser — Google Chrome for PC, Safari for Mac. On the PC side, IE weighs in at #4 and Opera at #6, with Windows Explorer (hey, you need what you need), Windows Live Messenger, Word, Outlook, World of Warcraft, and Excel filling out the list. For Mac folk, it’s Finder in the #3 spot, followed by Adium, iTunes, Mail, VLC media Player, QuickTime Player, Photoshop, and Textmate — raising suspicions among the PC crowd that the Mac people are slacking not doing anything serious with their computers enjoying themselves.

later the article gives the most popular destinations

As for Web apps, Wakoopa users are a social bunch, and they love their Google. Facebook is the #1 destination, but the rest of the top five goes to the search giant: Gmail, YouTube, Google Search, and Google Reader. Twitter’s #5 with a bullet; according to Wakoopa, adoption of the macroblogging service grew by 7% in the first quarter of the year, with 23% of Wakoopa users now active on the service. Wikipedia, FriendFeed, MySpace, and LiveJournal fill out the top ten.

it also appears that people are less than diligent about time at work (Quel surprise!)

Sifting through the inaugural Wakoopa report turns up a few other fun stats. For instance, your work day may end at 5:00 pm, but based on usage, you might be spending that last hour slacking or sllllowwwwly loading your backpack — apps use starts to fall off around 4:00 pm daily. (It also appears that you’re not really signing on until around 9:30 am; hmm.) Games usage is actually heaviest not on the weekends, when users are equally likely to fire up an office-productivity suite, design tools, or multimedia players; you’re more likely to be playing between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm on a weekday if you’re using a PC, or from 10:00 to midnight if you’re on a Mac.

As someone who has observed many people at work, during the times I have been there to work on the machines that allow their work, this tends to correspond much more closely to what I’ve seen, and it is odd that more employers don’t notice this sort of trending.

The other things that the Wakoopa survey tells us are those that we suspected, but now are confirmed – Twitter is a great time waster, CurrentTV is a favorite, and  all continents play World of Warcraft in huge numbers, save for Africa.

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** perhaps too many at work are looking for celebrity sightings, gossip, and water-cooler fodder