When early adopters sit at their computers, what applications and websites do they use the most? The answer: Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office, and MSN Messenger—just like most everyone else. At least according to data from RescueTime, the productivity app that monitors the amount of time a user spends on every application on his desktop. The Y Combinator-funded startup has given us an exclusive look at the usage data they’ve compiled from over 30,000 users (most of whom are early adopters). This data represents real-life usage on a huge scale, totaling 475,190 man-hours.
Gmail, Facebook, and Skype make strong showings, but still lag behind Microsoft’s desktop apps. Microsoft Websites, however, are nowhere to be seen. All of this suggests that among early adopters, desktop apps still rule, but Webtop apps are gaining ground in terms of what they use every day. After Outlook and Word, Gmail is the third most-used application, Facebook is No. 6, Google search is No. 10, iTunes is No. 11, and Skype is No. 16.
If you add up all of Google’s apps and sites, they take up 17 percent of the time this group spends on their computers. But Microsoft’s apps collectively take up 41 percent of their time, so Google still has some catching up to do.
Here’s the disclaimer: This data is by no means scientific. It represents mostly early adopters, but these are the people who are supposed to figure out what’s useful before the rest of us do. They are the canary in the coal mine. The data also has an international slant, with only 40% of users in the US (a total of 60% are English-speaking). About 35% of the users are on Macs, a rate over three times higher than the international estimate of 10% Mac market-share.
Here’s a breakdown of the top 20 applications and Websites, ranked by the overall time spent in each.
The Top 3
The top of the list is dull. Outlook stands tall with 12.4% of all the time spent on a computer, with MS Word(9.4%) and Gmail(6.6%) rounding out the top three. No surprises here.
Chat
In the battle for chat-client supremacy, MSN Messenger comes away with a whopping 4.14%, more than twice as much as the next leading client. Adium’s high performance is indicative of the high proportion of Mac users (it is easily the best client on the Mac).
Websites
Facebook holds a surprisingly strong lead over other websites, with nearly three times as much usage as Wikipedia’s English site. Also notable is Twitter.com’s usage (this is the site itself, not the API, which reportedly sees ten times more action). Digg is more popular among this group than the NYTimes.com, and gaming site Kongregate makes a strong showing as well. TechCrunch comes up right behind YouPorn (NSFW), which isn’t such a bad place to be in.
In all, RescueTime users spent 44.6% of their time using communication services, beating out work-related apps by a large margin. The trend is probably much worse for the typical user, as RescueTime users are more likely to try to stay on task (in theory, at least).
We’ve included the full spreadsheet below, and would love to see further analysis in the comments.
Lol @ warcraft on a company’s computer
YouPorn beat TechCrunch. Nice.
Don’t you mean “Early adopters who think they need time management software and go to the trouble of finding and installing Rescue Time still spend more time with Microsoft?”
I’m assuming these are all Windows systems?
As a Mac user, I can tell you there is no way these stats would be the same across operating systems.
Where was the user when generating this data? I´d guess at the office. If at home, the data would show a lot less of word, excel and outlook and more of Google assets. Users spend more hours at the office than at home, I agree, but it would be interesting to at least look at the weighted average (home/office).
LOL @alan.
Interesting, although the amount of “time” measured here is surely not inclusive of the amount of time spent preparing for and participating in meetings (outlook) and thinking / developing financial models (excel).
Not to mention that the majority of these apps are running on windows machines I’m sure.
But the idea that we are transitioning in the way we use tools is undeniable. I am personally more interested in seeing how mobility will effect the way we use these things. i.e. when will sitting at a desk and staring at a screen become obsolete?
I’m curious to know more about the sample from which the results were obtained, particularly finding out why it was Visual Studio was #8 above YouTube. I’m not suggesting a MS bias, but maybe I’m in the extreme minority (Linux user converted to Mac OS X)
most people would still prefer to have a copy of their mail stashed in their computer… I don’t think I’m wrong in my assessment. For google to REALLY catch up in this… they will have to create a good alternative to this great feature on Outlook. Listen up Google, for I’m one of your big fan.
Thank you Alan … there is NO WAY this is representative of what normal people believe early adopters to look like. Early adopters would first skew to Mac, then decent showing to Linux/ Open Office (moi), and Firefox.
@pete: what are you talking about??? Every heard of IMAP or POP3??? I have my gmail.com on my computer.
In the beginning, back in the mid 90’s when I was first exposed to Microsoft products, I used what was available within the OS because I was a noob, not an early adopter. But as time progressed I looked at moving away from OS-centric apps kind of as ‘growing-up.’
Now, my top 10 ‘things’ of choice are (1) FireFox, (2) Gmail, (3) Wordpress (on my own blogs), (4) Linux, (5) Twitter, (6) Skype, (7) FeedReader.com, (8) OpenOffice.org, (9) TextPad and (10) WinXP.
I realize this comment may be somewhat irrelevant, but I think the whole premise of the post is somewhat irrelevant.
No offense intended, but, early adopters = what? I guess my vision of someone who’s an early adopter isn’t some dude rummaging around in Outlook or spending a lot of time tossing Facebook notifications telling him/her someone infected them with syphilis.
I could be wrong, though.
Man, I feel so out of it here on my Mac using none of the MS products listed above. I think I might actually have Office on here – the trialware at least. But that’s as close as I get. Thank goodness for Open Office! @htmljenn
I’m happy to see Kongregate on there, but it seems very odd that AIM doesn’t show up at all.
This is sort of ridiculous.. because the people that are likely to use RescueTime are probably from the same cookie cutter mold to use the same applications. I’m an early adopter but would never use Rescue Time.. cause honestly it sucks. I use firefox, gmail, google, other various websites, and shell. theres most used apps.
@12, and a few others
I talked to the CEO and he agreed that the data does come from a set of people that would probably be classified as ‘early adopters’. There are a few indicators that you might expect (high numbers of Mac and Firefox users). The program hasn’t been out for very long to begin with, so these are ‘early adopters’ in a literal sense.
But I agree that the definition of early adopter is certainly up for debate.
These percentages are out of total hours spent by all users. You should report means of individuals.
#18 is notepad? Interesting, I wonder if that is people editing code (js/php/etc) or using it to take notes.
Jason mentioned that this sample of ~500,000 man hours was not scientific– merely interesting.
@Paul (#8) Regarding Visual Studio – I think it’s up that high because it’s really THE tool for MS Development (which a lot of people do for a living). If you added up all of the disparate tools that people use to develop OSS (which spread across 3 platforms), I think it’d probably beat Visual Studio. If we were going to really try to break down development tools, we’d have to bucket ‘em up to get meaningful data.
@Everyone who thinks this is all Windows users… It’s not. RescueTime has a disproportionate number of Mac and Linux users (the founders are among them)– though Windows still represents a healthy majority of our users.
@Emily (#14) AIM is #44 with 1,955 man hours. Meebo and Pidgin are on there too (which probably reprensets some AIM traffic, too).
Cheers, -Tony (RescueTime)
I wonder how many of the early adopters were from Seattle (MS/Amazon bias?). Seems like most of the early adopters were “at work”.
To me the sample set needs to be defined more meaningfuly to be able to even grasp the implications of these numbers.
First of all, there’s no RescueTime for Linux. So _ALL_ early adopters in that crucial space (from Linus Torvards to eee pc users) are totally out.
Early adopters don’t use MS windows. They may use _MS window_ (inside a virtualbox, WM fusion, or parallels).
Perhaps some large companies installed this thing and placed them all over their support personnel in India? That would explain this data.
My first thought about RescueTime was … interesting. My second thought was… for Dilberts.
I”m sorry, I have a really hard time believing that more people use FB than use google search. EVERYONE i know uses google search, not everyone I know uses FB. Doesn’t make sense.
@22
It’s probably more likely that people use Google search for a short period of time. This isn’t counting page views, it’s the amount of time you spent at a site.
A more interesting view of the desktop is what their desktop is truly talking to.
If you turned up netflow accounting on the gateway at the edge of their networks you would learn a lot more about what they are “using”.
Otherwise, you could want to understand NOT JUST focus behavior of the windows but the panes as well as the general human factors of a given application. Most folks I’ve watched have -something- running in the background that does not require focus.
Example: Person A stares mindlessly into space while Outlook is in “focus” as their favorite Internet radio station plays softly from the Winamp in the tray. They then come back to Outlook and are reading the hundredth forward of a chain letter joke or meme…
Interesting that Gmail is already half the usage of Outlook, at least in this group.
Who uses MSN messenger?!? Honestly.
A nightly “update” on Vista a few months back killed my MS Word… nice (I have since turned off the auto-updates, as that one was more of a nightly auto drive-by).
Since there were no immediate fixes obvious (MS Office support site patches, etc.) I had to find a solution quickly. Installed OpenOffice and never looked back as far as Word, the new menus in Office 2007 were getting on my nerves anyway. OO Calc is fine as well.
The only MS app that is still needed is PowerPoint, as the graphics portion of it is still well beyond the capabilites of OO or GoogleDocs. I actually use it to do most of my lower end graphics work for e.g. Wordpress headers, button, etc. Easier to use than Photoshop Elements, which I only go to for more somewhat more advanced effects such as .png disappearance fades, etc.
@21 (Alex) – There is a RescueTime for Linux, which was developed by a few really talented non-Dilbert engineers. https://launchp...-linux-uploader
India represents less than .5% of the visits to RescueTime.
I think it’s easy to assume that early adopters are ALL Mac (with a smattering of Linux), but I think the reality is a bit more balanced. Just look at the web stats from any “early adopter” blog/site.
If this survey is a true reflection of just how popular Microsoft products are with early adopters, then perhaps Microsoft should look more inwards as to where they can develop their own online advertising platform.
Imagine if Microsoft created a web based sponsored link advertising platform for all of their popular desktop products like Outlook and Office, or at least placed a Live Search toolbar within these products.
This possible advertising strategy from Microsoft could give them a serious weapon in their online battle with Google.
Google has built the most effective online advertising platform around, but imagine what Microsoft could do if they could build an advertising platform based around their most popular desktop products.
The bottom line for Microsoft should be, that if you have a number of popular desktop products then why not build a sponsored link advertising platform around them.
I wonder if anyone at Microsoft can see the bigger picture.
hmm i don’t know. Stats 101 – can make stats “say” anything. Google search is in my toolbar and accessed constantly, and I leave my (not facebook) social app open even if I’m not looking at it, so theoretically they are tied. The reason I spend so much in Outlook is b/c the “view loading” and search are so painfully slow.
Hi,
I love this stuff. There are more and more analytics companies out there trying to make sense of what we do and how we do it. It will eventually evolve into the foundation of Profile 2.0.
Check out my preso.
http://www.slid...bouy/profile-20
Lots of interesting posts so please keep it up!
@25 (Alex) — There are some extensions to OpenOffice.org presentation program which really make it outstanding (3d transitions, templates, file size minimization, etc). This new version of OpenOffice is truly incredible. I was, sort of speak, bought when it loaded my PhD thesis (written way back in 2001) with all equations and graphics, perfectly. I just donated 50 bucks to the folks at NeoOffice (Mac), which is also awesome. Version 3 (still in beta) is going to turn the tide, I think, even in corporations.
@26 (Tony)– Thanks for the feedback. At work people are still dominated by MS; but I think that at home early adopters really tend to avoid it. It would be nice to see more of this data, perhaps broken by OS type and by browser. I would throw my hands in despair if firefox 3.0beta5 users are still plagued by outlook. I think _your_ early adopters are obviously tilted in some way or other. It would be _awesome_, for example, to see what techcrunch readers are using.
@27 (Moe) I really want microsoft to do this!!! I hope they put 5 colorful ads, with video streaming at each message!!! It would piss so many people off that they would start considering the alternatives to the MS cr4p.
It’s just so depressing to see tech zombies still using outlook. Does someone here actually use it? Can you please point out one single reason to use it? Does it have any advantage over gmail?
Evil app. I don’t need a record, having a record won’t change it. I hope this technology doesn’t make it at the workplace to track employees… evil, just evil.
You can’t can make any conclusions with the given data. In addition to all the things wrong mentioned above, this assumes that the availability of all the apps on the lists are the same. Which is not true at work since some unfortunate souls don’t have access to apps such as facebook / myspace / youtube /youPorn.
I’m sorry, but I have to laugh at everyone going off on early adopters using linux/ubuntu/mac/etc. Being an “early adopter” (I built my first computer with a soldering iron and programmed it with switches) I tend to use the tools that do that jobs that I need done. And no matter how much a very small percentage of computer users wants to think that they are the deciding factor in things, the reality is that early adopters aren’t all on linux. As Tony points out, you just need to look at the logs for websites that are considered “early adopter” – without fail the largest number of visits are going to come from Windows / Internet Explorer. Why? Because it’s the dominant platform out there. Period.
The number of people that are surprised by Visual Studio being so high on the list also amazes me. The majority of people using computers use applications, not web sites, to do the majority of their work. And those applications are usually Windows based. And most Windows based applications are written using Visual Studio. And without fail, people who use Visual Studio have it up and running on their machines whenever they are working.
Now with all that said, I think that the information provided is interesting, but to really understand and use it you’d truly need to know a lot more details. For instance, where were the stats collected? What kind of business was it? Heck, was it a business at all? Even beyond that, you really want to know what department users were in. Or if they were at home, what they do for a living. I would have been fascinated to have this information provided when I was running an enterprise IT department (I know – IT departments are evil) and might consider it if I’m in that same position again.
Now back to the “early adopter” thing. I know that people will scream if I don’t submit some evidence of being one, so here goes: I’m writing this on a Mac, using last nights build of Safari that is currently syncing my iTouch. I’m sitting next to a Windows box (Vista) that is booting up so I can test an interface someone just sent me. When that is done I’m going to watch some streamed video on a Mac Mini, probably something that I ripped onto my home NAS. I first saw this thread on my Nokia 810, and I’m going to hit submit so that I can finish up a phone call that my IP based phone system currently has on hold and I’m going to transfer to my Nokia E90 so I can walk across the street and drop something off to the neighbors. Have a good night everyone.
While you appreciate what this company are doing, can you really take anything away from the data? I tend to think not.
I mean, its definitely not representative of the whole population. So it gets a strike there. So what box do you put these users in? Early adopters? But its not representative of that either.
Just because it has a decent amount of users (30,000) doesn’t at all mean the statistics coming out are more accurate.
So then you have to ask yourself, what is the point?
Most of what I consider early adopters are using OS X and Microsoft Windows (XP or Vista). I know some linux experts and I have compiled my own hardened Linux From Scratch with compositing window manager. But Linux, to me, is mostly about the operating system and academic software for research, and not about the interface or web applications, so I wouldn’t be quite as interested in which applications Linux users are using in the context of the market research being done.
One way to look at the data is to say that early adopters are just using Microsoft’s tools because it is the shortest and most efficient path to managing those aspects of their jobs and businesses. Microsoft has won the management of the enterprise game in the current technology, and it is time to accept that fact and use Microsoft’s enterprise tools to create the next generation of technology, with which some other companies will build their markets.
The problem with OpenOffice is that it sucks and that it won’t replace MSOffice or online office software.
I think there is some incentive for everyone except Microsoft and Apple to make the browser into some kind of powerful virtual machine that eventually devours it’s host. That’s why I think Microsoft needs more web partners, and Google and Adobe will continue to make the browser more powerful. But I think consumers are more interested in an interface OS X. So it should be interesting how the balance between desktop and browser plays out.
The usage data if combined with the number of users could give insight into if gmail is better than outlook in terms of getting tasks done. If the average person spends 20% more time with open office compared to ms office it culd indicate that ms office is a better product.
@36
Maybe, but the OpenOffice user might just have more emails to sort through.
The list is looking funny. Visual Studio is even in the list, 2.39%.
Who use Visual Studio? Software developers, only a small portion of software developers. Do you really agree that Visual Studio usage contribute to 2.39%.
99% of the computer users are not working in IT at all, there’s no way for them to touch Visual Studio.
The demographic of the survey was obviously poor, likely people working in the IT industries took part in mostly.
Why is Rescue Time sharing this data?
nice stats, tony. it’d be cool to see a trends-like application!
Absolutly amazing that people spend a whopping 0,36 % of their time on “old mainstream media” (NY Times + CNN). Must be a very depressing number for them …
Mmmm… it occur to me two things:
A user could be accessing GMail via Outlook (or other desktop clients). However, this would increase only the client app share.
And, how many of the early adopters can be presumed to be enrolled in Google Apps for Your Domain? I’d say a fair share. They’d be managing their email through gmail (albeit with their own domain) and that would not count towards GMail, either.
From this, my conclusion is that GMail is probably at least #2 actually.
What happened to eBay? They don’t even turn up in this stats
I am not surprised. This tells us why desktop clients are so popular than the web based clients. I wonder when i see twitts from desktop.
So according to this, the average “new” user spends more time in Visual Studio than YouTube. Hello! Anybody home TechCrunch? You guys need a new editor. This kind of garbage shouldn’t be posted.
Apearently all these people figured out how to use the internet (mall.google.com, facebook.com, google.com, etc.) without a browser!
Any chance you can post a PDF of the paper. Or at least make the scribd paper available for email?
I cannot fathom how MSN Messenger accounts for such high usage data. MSN Messenger’s popularity and appeal has typically been in the overseas and international regions (i.e. EMEA) and not United States as services such as good ol’ AIM and Yahoo filled in this void.
More information regarding the users of Rescue Time is needed before we can make any definitive statement regarding the trend/tendencies amongst “early adopters.”
I actually use RescueTime on my work PC. I use Outlook here because that’s what we all use here. I use Word here because clients send them to us and I have to open them and I already have Office installed, so why bother using OpenOffice (which is what I use at home).
I’d imagine a lot of people are in a similar situation. They’re mostly tracking their time at work, and a lot of people are still using MS apps at work, not by choice, but because they have to.
When they go home they probably use Gmail and whatever else, but if they’re not running RescueTime at home, then obviously you’re not seeing it in these stats.
“Apearently all these people figured out how to use the internet (mall.google.com, facebook.com, google.com, etc.) without a browser!”
That’s how rescuetime reports usage. Having one entry for Firefox for 8 hours wouldn’t be very useful.