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Top OmniNerd Content of 2011

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As 2012 begins, OmniNerd enters it’s eighth year of existence. Here’s a quick look back at the site’s changes and some of the top content from 2011 in various categories.

Visually, OmniNerd didn’t change too much but there were major changes to the site unseen to the naked eye. Mark converted the entire architecture to Rails 3.1 and migrated us to new hardware to keep up with the times. Matt added some moderator tools to deal with spammers along with the “Looking Glass” feature to revisit content from 1, 3 and 5 years past. Additionally, the promotion links were changed to better support FaceBook Sharing and Google “+1s”. Our nerds contributed 193 new articles, 38 links, 16 books and 41 polls all while debating each other with 1793 comments.

The most heavily commented content varied somewhat evenly between polls and articles. There was plenty of content following the top ten with highly active discussions as well, but these had the most:

  1. Noewegian [sic] tragedy (97)
  2. Warren Buffet Promotes Taxing Rich (76)
  3. Texas Firearm Legislation Session 82 2011 (54)
  4. What Is The Supernatural (35)
  5. Silly Entitlement Wishes for Idaho (32)
  6. Are Drones Hostile? (30)
  7. The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons (29)
  8. American Nuclear Power (23)
  9. Burning of the Koran (22)
  10. Utility of Standardized Testing (22)

OmniNerd’s automated scoring system assessed the following articles as the “best” for their aggregated sources, writing quality, use of media, etc.

  1. Did China Hijack 15% of the Internet: Routers, BGP and Ignorance
  2. American Nuclear Power
  3. Proposed 2011 Budget
  4. What’s Next After bin Laden?
  5. Required Activities For Forthcoming Credibility
  6. Hydraulic Fracturing in Marcellus Shale: Energy Boom or Environmental Bust?
  7. I Hate Wall Street Traders F*$&ing The Economy
  8. Wind Powered Car Outpaces Wind
  9. What Is The Supernatural
  10. Egyptian Unrest

From Google Analytics, it turns out some of the oldest content remains the most popular with non-registered readers across the Internet. It turns out that most of these were popular in 2010 as well with similar views. The * denotes the two newcomers into the top 10 list.

  1. Pattern Analysis of MegaMillions Lottery Numbers (134,018 views)
  2. How To Install an Underground Sprinkler System on a Budget (58,364 views)
  3. 4WD vs AWD and the Fallacy of Snow Traction (26,880 views)
  4. Best R Rated Movies of the Past 10 Years (20,052 views)
  5. Improve MPG – The Factors Affecting Fuel Efficiency (16,951 views)
  6. Fix Memory Card Error on BlackBerry Without Computer (11,091 views)
  7. Internet Weather Forecast Accuracy (10,252 views)
  8. Paid Twice a Month vs Every Two Weeks (10,015 views) *
  9. Do Ouija Boards Work? The Fact and Fiction (9,649 views) *
  10. How To Build a Glass Mosaic Tile Fireplace (8,376 views)

Other interesting tidbits and breakdowns from Google Analytics. A lot of users are still stuck using Internet Explorer, but compared to the OS breakdown, at least it shows “choice” at work in straying from the defaults provided by Microsoft (though seemingly not from Apple):

  • IE 38% (down 4)
  • Firefox 23% (down 5)
  • Safari 18% (up 4)
  • Chrome 15% (up 4)

For browser reported operating systems:

  • Windows 69% (down 6)
  • Macintosh 15% (down 1)
  • Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) 7% (up 4)
  • Linux 3%

Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:

Information This article was edited after publication by the author on 04 Jan 2012. View changes.

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