Chitka (an ad company) has revealed that traffic coming in that is using Windows Developer Preview is considerably lower than it was back in September. According to what Chitka observes, with the announcement of a developer app contest going on, the new Marketplace announcements, and possible hype of the upcoming Beta it seems odd that activity has decreased. Chitka is looking at this wrong if you ask me, and right now a decline in WDP support is really not that unexpected. First off, when it was released in September there were tons of non-developers that jumped on board to play with the new OS. Without a Marketplace, Metro was really a rather limited experience beyond just goofing around and testing for bugs. As many casual techies got to play around with WDP, they made their impressions by telling their friends or talking on blogs, twitter, and Facebook. After that was said and done, most of these type of users found little real reason to use WDP any longer. This meant that those using WDP now are more than likely either developers or working on a site like this, using WDP to list bugs and other pertinent information we discover. Windows 8 related websites have seen a major drive in traffic of late, and this shows that there is indeed excitement being generated around Windows 8… so why not more downloads now? It is logical that people are now waiting for the Beta. In fact many users like myself found that they were using WDP constantly at first but have grown bored until they have more features to play with, like a Marketplace. Once the Beta comes out many of these previous downloaders will return for a second-look and ad traffic from those with Windows 8 on their machines will likely be at their highest numbers yet. It is way too early to gauge responses to a pre-Beta as any evidence that Windows 8 might be in trouble. Windows 8 is still not out the door and until it is a commercial product we won’t be able to accurately assess how the public responds to it. Ultimately, how well the Beta is received will depend on a few things. If the marketplace is solid and has some really capable apps to show off what Metro is all about, it will have a good deal of success. Additionally, if Metro’s interface has been improved for keyboard/mouse support at the request of many early users of WDP, there will be even more positive response to the Beta. How the Beta does still won’t determine how well W8 will do among average consumers though, but it will give a better picture to Microsoft about how more tech-inclined users view their newest version of Windows. I am quite excited by Windows 8, and yet I find myself barely using WDP these days. Yes, it can do just about everything Windows 7 can do and with about the same reliability, but it just isn’t exciting… yet. What do you think of Windows 8? Does it surprise you that user numbers of WDP are down or do you think this is expected so close to a Beta release? As always, share your thoughts below.]]>
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