Searching the Net to find out more about Microsoft’s oft-delayed, finally-arriving operating system, Vista, sends people where they want to go today; Vista’s creator tops the list, followed by Wikipedia.
Now that the consumer launch of Windows Vista is at hand, interest in the latest stop along the trail of Microsoft’s revenue stream has ramped up significantly, and should gain in the short term.
Hitwise analyst LeeAnn Prescott noted how interest began to spiral the week before Vista’s debut:
In anticipation of the launch, last week the share of US Internet searches for ‘windows vista’ increased by 53% from the previous week (week ending 1/27/07 vs. week ending 1/20/07). The volume of searches for the much-anticipated new operating system surpassed interest in Microsoft’s most popular hardware products, ‘xbox 360’ and ‘zune.’ Searches for ‘microsoft office’ were up 49% in the same period, indicating that interest in the new Office software may also be driving interest in the new OS.
Altogether, the volume of queries Hitwise measured for ‘windows vista’ coming through search engines mostly saw visitors continue on for Microsoft, 58.6 percent of them eager to beam on to the Redmond Mothership. The next largest segment headed for Wikipedia, at 6.84 percent.
To LeeAnn, this means something when it comes to demographics:
Hitwise demographics show a substantial difference between visitors to Wikipedia and visitors to the Microsoft site: Wikipedia users are much more likely be in the 18-24 age-group and visitors to the Microsoft site are much more likely to be over 55.
Microsoft has been around for over 30 years, so that older group has literally aged alongside the company. They probably paid thousands of dollars for IBM PCs that ran DOS with about as much computing power then as one would find inside a high-end Crock Pot today.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
