Most read articles of 2016 and other statistics
Posted by Huw,
We post a list of most read articles every week, as you know, so I thought it'd be interesting to see a list of most read from last year:
| Article | Date posted | Views | Likes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Technic 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS | 25 Apr | 136011 | 65 |
| 2 | The LEGO Group takes action against clone brand LEPIN | 22 Sep | 108285 | 99 |
| 3 | 2017 Star Wars sets revealed! | 19 Nov | 89274 | 74 |
| 4 | 21306 The Beatles Yellow Submarine revealed | 12 Oct | 86287 | 90 |
| 5 | Preview: 75159 Death Star | 28 Aug | 83306 | 81 |
| 6 | Whatever happened to baseplates? | 19 Feb | 81176 | 78 |
| 7 | 71040 Disney Castle press release | 11 Jul | 68549 | 95 |
| 8 | Review: 42056 Porsche 911 GT3 RS | 01 Jun | 66721 | 48 |
| 9 | LEGO Minifigures - The LEGO Batman Movie Series announced | 22 Nov | 62636 | 93 |
| 10 | 10254 Winter Holiday Train | 11 Aug | 62234 | 81 |
See 11-20 after the break:
| Article | Date posted | Views | Likes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 10252 VW Beetle press release | 14 Jun | 60697 | 92 |
| 12 | Summer 2016 set lists discovered | 05 Jan | 59250 | 40 |
| 13 | 76052 Batman Classic TV Series - Batcave officially revealed | 12 Jan | 58664 | 62 |
| 14 | Review: 75827 Firehouse Headquarters | 04 Jan | 57416 | 60 |
| 15 | 10255 Assembly Square: press release | 17 Oct | 56027 | 124 |
| 16 | Rogue One sets revealed | 01 Sep | 52358 | 56 |
| 17 | Review: 75159 Death Star | 12 Sep | 51359 | 116 |
| 18 | World's largest LEGO Store to open in Leicester Square | 12 Sep | 49812 | 45 |
| 19 | Review: 10253 Big Ben | 20 Jun | 47805 | 78 |
| 20 | 10253 Big Ben press release | 19 May | 47632 | 89 |
It provides a great overview of the big stories of the year, the most exciting product releases and the articles you found most interesting. I'm slightly surprised that Whatever happened to baseplates? is so high in the list. Is this an indication of how much you miss them? Maybe, but more likely to be because the article was at the top of the LEGO Subreddit for some time that day.
It's also fun to observe that the most read review isn't a review at all, but a preview of the Death Star, written before we had one in hand. CapnRex101 did such a good job of dissecting the product images that perhaps you learned enough about it without needing to read the proper review.
The final traffic figures for the year, from Google Analytics are:
- Visits: 27,845,373
- Users: 7,885,216
- Page Views: 106,984,502
The busiest days of the year in terms of number of visits to the site were as follows:
| Date | Visits | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| 25th January | 110,000 | London toy fair reports (subsequently deleted at LEGO's request) |
| 13th February | 107,000 | New York toy fair / Assault on Hoth press release |
| 19th February | 114,000 | Baseplates article, mentioned on Reddit |
| 24th April | 98,000 | Porsche 911 GT3 RS press release |
| 19th November | 105,000 | 2017 Star Wars images, mentioned on Reddit |
We won't be covering the London toy fair this year due to the draconian publishing restrictions and no photography rules: it's a waste of everyone's time if we can't report on what we see, so we won't be bothering to attend. However we'll be teaming up with Andreas at zusammengebaut.com who will be at the German toy fair at the beginning of February and photographing everything in sight and also, hopefully, The Brick Show guys who will be at the New York toy fair shortly afterwards.
On Christmas Day CapnRex101 wrote that at the time we collectively owned 14,729,745 sets. That figure is now 14,882,710, an increase of 152,965. If we divide that by the number of members who have logged in since then (I estimate 20,000 based on the numbers in the footer) that's an average of 7.6 per member.
We should hit 15 million and also the $400 million collective value mark in the next few months.
Finally, we are seeing an increase in new members who are joining at a rate of about 900 a week, compared to 500 normally. If you're just joined us, welcome to our community! We hope you like what you see and continue to visit during 2017. Feel free to let us know your views in the comments or via the contact form below.
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12 comments on this article
Great to see these statistics! I'm also interested in what the most commented on articles from the last year would be, is there a way of compiling these together in a short list too, perhaps? :)
^ good idea
Seems rather silly that the London Toy Fair has restrictions about reporting and photography when the German toy fair is a week or so afterwards.
Comments is a far more interesting metric than "likes". I frequently comment but never, ever "like" (don't see the point, really) so the latter isn't much of any measure of worth in my book.
Huw, what's the population of our Minifigs now? (in relation to some countries)
I'll do some database crunching and produce some more lists later...
Good to see that the "baseplate" article was read by so many - I love these kind of articles - same with the one about 4x2 blocks!
As an AFOL who can't afford more than a fraction of the huge number of new sets that Lego release (and who missed out on a lot of fascinating sets/ themes during my "dark ages"), I love seeing these geeky retrospective articles that compare modern and ancient sets, show some context and something more substantial. More please!
(not a criticism of all the set reviews - I read many reviews of sets I know I'll never afford - I'm just glad that this fantastic site gives such a variety of articles - it's not just about the latest sets or a nostalgia fest about 1970s sets - there's something for everyone)
I don't actually agree with the baseplates article at all. They restrict play quite significantly and that's likely the reason LEGO has reduced their usage in recent years.
2016 was a terrific year for Brickset and I'm looking forward to seeing what 2017 will offer!
Well done on a great year of great articles, great reviews and excellent coverage. Nice to see the site growing, been a lurker for a while but finally joined here and the forums this year.
Hopefully I don't make too much of a tw*t of myself.
"average of 7.6 per member". I would have guessed a much higher figure. How accurate is this?
@HugeYellowBrick I didn't get any LEGO this year for Christmas. I'm sorry I'm pulling down the average. I promise to make up for it in 2017.
I think there's one article that definitely deserves to be on the list. Possibly some of the finest reviewing ever seen on this or any other site, ever: http://brickset.com/article/20294/review-7538491478894966-assault-on-echo-rebel-wampa-snowspeeder-base-on-hoth
Still funny....