I can’t believe the day has finally come but it’s here. Our 1 year anniversary! Back last December 3rd I started this blog almost as a bookmarking system for myself. I posted about things that I thought would be interesting to go back and read about in the future. Little did I know that it would turn out to be what it has.
I laugh when I look back at some of the posts because they are so poorly written, and I would like to think that my writing habits have gotten a lot better since then. I’m a Computer Engineer so I am in no way an English major, but I have tried to learn from my weaknesses.
CyberNet News started as a hobby and I was casually posting 2-3 times a day until around June when I decided to kick it up a notch. Then in July we moved over from a shared Web server to a dedicated one that is hosted by Cari.net. They were one of the few server solutions that offered reasonable pricing. Right now we have a Pentium 4 Hyperthreaded PC (1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive) that purrs like a kitten. It is nice to have the power to SSH into our own server and install anything that we want. Not only that but the support that Cari.net offers is tremendous. If I ever have a problem that I’m trying to troubleshoot I just give them a call, and I don’t think I can recall a single time that I have been put on hold. In my book they are a company that cares about their customers.
In that same time frame we started keeping track of our statistics. Yes, I know, no one can believe that I never knew how many visitors we were getting before then but that wasn’t what pushed me to write. Technology is something I’m passionate about, and that is my motivation. For those of you who are curious as to what our stats look like, here is a brief overview that is for July to December of 2006:
- 1.306 million unique visitors (31% of those people have visited the site more than once)
- 2.239 million page views
- Our most viewed page is the homepage with 126,000 unique visitors followed closely by the article on making XP look like Vista with 117,000 unique visitors
- Browser choice:
- 63% use Firefox
- 26% use Internet Explorer
- 4% use Safari
- 4% use Opera
- 73% of you are using Cable/DSL and there are still 8% that have dial-up
- Where are the visitors coming from?
- 405,000 from Digg
- 51,000 from Stubleupon
- 8,000 from the Gooogle Personalized Homepage
- 7,000 from the Google Reader
- What are the most popular search engines?
- 71,000 visitors from a Google search
- 39,000 visitors from a Yahoo search
- 21,000 visitors from a MSN search
- Most popular search phrases:
- “cybernet news” with 5,000 hits
- “cybernetnews” with 4200 hits
- “cybernet” with 2600 hits
- The most popular non-CyberNet related search terms are “best antivirus” with 1400 results and “make xp look like Vista” with 1300
Ashley joined me in writing in the middle of this year and together we have a lot of fun building up the site and making it a great community to start discussions. Right now we are trying to figure out ways to optimize our advertising so that we can pursue this site as a full-time career which is something we both really want to do.
Thanks again to all of our dedicated readers because you help make the discussions on the blog and in the forum more enjoyable! Alright…now onto the good stuff…
The Contest!!
Alright, we want to thank all of our readers for helping us grow and in light of the holiday season (and our 1-year anniversary) we decided to give away a $100 gift certificate to Amazon.com. It is open to everyone worldwide (except where prohibited, of course) and the gift certificate will be delivered via email. We’re going to run this until Thursday and announce the winner on Friday morning…meaning you will have plenty of time to put in a holiday order from Amazon.
So what do you have to do? We thought about having people send in videos of themselves disco dancing while dressed like Cher, but we didn’t want to take away everyone’s dignity. So all you have to do is post a comment below (be sure to include your email address in the email address field if your not a registered user) and tell us one of (or both if you would like) the following things:
- What’s your favorite article?
- How did you come across CyberNet?
On Thursday we’ll randomly select one of the comments (we will only count one comment in the drawing if you submit a comment more than once) and then Friday morning the winner is announced and they’ll receive the gift certificate via the provided email address.
Congratulations!
My favorite article was “What you need to know to be a Firefox Nightly Tester.”
I wish I could remember how I came across CyberNet, but I don’t. However it was, I’m really happy that I did.
Great Job, and have a great 2nd year!
I come across CyberNet occasionally.Maybe Google led me here.
My favorite article was “Access Your Gmail Even Faster On Your Phone”.
well,Congratulations!
The [tech.cybernetnews.com] is definitely my favorite.
Anyways, I think that’s how I came across CyberNet — through a Digg.com article that linked to that guide.
Happy 1 year anniversary!
- Jason
Congratulations
My favorite articles are “All the ones I told him about”
I came across this site because Ryan is my brother.
And I read nothing about this contest not being eligible to family members. HAHA
Eric
Favorite article? Is this a joke? All of your articles are great!
This is one of the only sites that I check almost every day. As to how I found it…I heard about it in a PCMag Online article about Firefox 2 Beta 1, with a link to this site to download your portable version. That has become one of my favorite PCMag articles! 
Happy birthday!
congratulations completing 1 year
my favourite article was the Royale Noir theme which you announced and i downloaded it immediately.i also liked your firefox tweak guide.
i got you know your website through digg.com
apoorva
A few months back I found your site while looking for Firefox tips (memory leak fixes) and enjoyed the posts. Now I must check your site every day. It is not a good day without my daily dose of CyberNet. I like to keep up on breaking tech stuff and you have pointed me onto many new sites, software and more. Thank you and congratulations on the first of many years of a successful and prosperous site.
As for favorite article, there are too many good ones to choose from. I like them all.
Brad
HAPPY 1YR ANNIVERSARY!!!
It’s hard to say my favorite article, I especially like the updates on Firefox and Yahoo! (mail beta). I guess I’ll say my favorite post is the Firefox 2 tweak guide, because it’s a great reference to all the awesome yet hidden tweaks of Fx.
I’m not exactly sure of how I found this site, but I bet it was from a Yahoo! search for Yahoo! mail beta or Firefox
My favorite post is the latest one. I always like seeing a new post on this blog. But if you make me choose, it’s the first one that turned me to to the Vista transformation stuff. I really enjoyed that.
I am pretty sure I found this because the John C. Dvorak blog linked to you. Now I watch this site more closely than his!
Congrats and good luck with year #2!
I’m not entirely sure how I found you but I have been reading ever since. I think it was probably once of your articles about Vista that came up on digg. As for my favorite article, I’d have to say the Royale Noir theme article. By far my favorite theme.
Well done. Enjoyed some of your posts.
Congrats on the first year Ryan!!…
Wow, has it really been a year? It seems like yesterday that you had the Firefox header. I think I first came across this site by Digg but it’s been so long that I’m not really sure anymore. Through this site I’ve gotten into Writely, Orkut, and several other programs. I even started using nightly builds of Firefox and greatly appreciated the about:config tweaks post that you had.
I think I found you through a digg link. Congrats on one year and best of luck with year two. I’ll be reading.
Favorite article: Minimizing Firefox Memory Leaks and other Firefox add-ons articles.
My Firefox is now a lighter and better browser
I think StumbleUpon brought me to CyberNet.
Now this site has become my daily “must-visit”.
Congrats!
Luke
Nice try Eric
Wow, you were actually around that long to remember the Firefox header?!
Thanks for sticking with us!
First of all Congratulations from me as well Ryan on a great website and a great 1st year anniversary!
1.) My favorite post was your first posting about Firefox 2.0 because you followed Mozilla so closely with Firefox 2 development.
2.) I think I came across CyberNet while looking for tech sites for technology info. This was about the time I began using RSS heavily with news with sites like NeoWin, Bink.nu, Slashdot, etc. So it was a link from one of those site types or a Google search for technology news something like that.
Anyway, I love the site and the reason it’s one of my favorites is that it aligns so closely with what I would do if I made a website for tech news like this.
Thanks for all the information!
-Matt
I love your site because of the assorted ‘Web 2.0′ sites that you write about and various Firefox extension/Google related stuff/free games. My own internet bookmarks have indeed now become precious to me.
I came across the site through [mstn.nl] if I remember correctly. And my fav article is [tech.cybernetnews.com]
Happy Birthday & Congrats..!!!
Am a big fan of CyberNet and now a days i usually visit this site twice or thrice…
and information i found here is just amazing… keep going on n on n on.!!!!
My favorite article was Make XP Look Like Vista
And i came across this site from Digg.com..
once again congrats..
Jinto
Happy 1st. Too bad I’ve only known about this site for the last two months. I feel like I have missed out…
I found out about the site from the creator himself. Ryan and I worked on a project together. In case you are wondering, he tends to half-ass his share of the work. I think this site takes up the majority of his time.
i came across cybernetnews when i searched google how to get a live.com account. my favorite article was “HURRY: Trick To Get A Windows @Live.com Email Address”
ofcourse, this is how i got myname@live.com, thankyou so much and congratulation on your 1yr. anniversary.
Greetings from Romania! This site is very important for me. I descovered it during this summer, when I was thinking how to make alive an IT website which was no longer updated for an year. Starting to reading it give me the idea to make something similar for Romanian (Eastern Europe) audience. So, CyberNet is the father of our new website version! I have learned from here how to choose the topics and how to write an article. And from here I have learned about other sources, so now our own IT website has 3-4 articles per day, not simple translations but topics inspired from CyberNet and other sources. This is my story, a story as a HUGE thanks to this site.
I get here from Google, as many. And I don’t have one favorite article, but a series: those about Firefox and about Google.
Happy Birthday, “daddy”!
Now sorry, I have to use Google suggestions from Firefox search box to find the answer to spam protection: (10) (1). Thanks for the tip!
My favourite post was “Tweak Firefox’s Performance Using FireTune”.
There are lot of other posts which are also my favourites and I have got a whole bunch of them bookmarked in Google Notebook.
And as far as remembering how I came across this interesting website, I have absolutely no idea, but if I had not, I would have been missing so many things in my online activities ranging from using a powerful Firefox browser, to signing up for writely getting invited by Ryan, to signing up for live.com email address(es), to testing IE7 without install etc.,
And I forgot to tell you that I am kind of addicted to checking for updates in this site hourly or so.
Happy 1 Year Anniversary!
My favourite article, as hard as it is to choose, would be, “CyberNotes: CyberNet’s Updated Guide On Firefox 2 Tweaks”.
I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure I came across this site from digg (either that or it was from another tech news site).
Best wishes for another awesome year! Keep up the good work.
Cya, Eddie.
Congratulations on the anniversary. I don’t remember specifically how or when I stumbled upon CyberNet News, but I’m sure it had to do with something Web 2.0 (I’m fanatical about reading up on all the latest websites and applications that come out).
I usually visit 2 or 3 times a day to see what you’ve reviewed or written about. There aren’t many blogs out there that are written with the ‘average’ user in mind. They’re either too folksy or too tech minded.
Additionally, the advertising isn’t overwhelming and the new layout is easy on the eyes.
cheers and keep up the great work!
gryphen
Happy anniversary. I first came to your site via Google around Christmas 2005 when you were blogging about Vista. You’re one of the better tech blogs out there and I’m a regular reader. Well done.
Favourite article: [tech.cybernetnews.com]
Congrats Ashley, Ryan & Cybernetnews! (I had no idea it was a fledgling site!)
Hope you guys can realise your dream of going fulltime very soon.
My favorite article was probably the one that introduced Inctrl & I’ll be damned if I can recall how I stumbled across here.
Congratulations!!!
1)All articles regarding Firefox.
2)By accident.
First of all, Happy belated Birthday!
My favourite areticle was the HURRY: Trick To Get A Windows @Live.com Email Address” !!
I came accross this site back in the day when it was still [url][cybernetnews.com][/url] from Google and have checked in 2 or 3 times daily ever since!
Keep up the great work!!!!
On one or two occasions I was brough here via Digg. After a few times I saw that more than just one post was interesting and deceided to add CybernetNews as one of my regular information sources. Not sure I can say I have a favorite article they’re all pretty good. I do love each time you’re talking about Opera
Congratulations!
I think my favorite article was about the Royale Noir theme, but you have a lot of good articles.
I don’t really remember how I got here it was maybe from some other site (not dig) or from Google.
Congratulations on the 1 year anniversary!
Like some of the others who have posted here, There are too many articles to list one as my favorite. I am a technology addict and this is by far the best site I have found to support my addiction.
As for how I found Cybernet, I really have no recollection of it, however, I would almost be certain it was from a search through Google.
Keep up the great work and I expect you you realize your dream of making this your full time job.
Totally stumbled on this site about 3 months ago and have checked it everyday since. Thank you Google.
Thanks to all the tips, my computing will never be the same. Keep up the awesome work!
I can’t think of one article that I enjoy the most but I enjoy the updates on software and the Firefox tweak guide.
I found CyberNet through fark.com
I love the articles about firefox, google and the covering of windows vista. I also like the fact that this site is very up-to-date with what goes around in tech world.
The first time I ended up here was via a google search… I think.
Anyway, I’m a constant reader.
I like most of the posts. I don’t remember any thing special.
The story of
I remember seeing blog favourited by most user, and was surprised to see one blog unknown to me, CyberNet from its one of my favorite blog.
Happy Birthday
Favourite Article : Ms. Dewey Makes Searching Interesting
[tech.cybernetnews.com]
Found Cybernet News by searching Google.
Great achievement!
I remember, I found CN through a google news article (it was about some windows live service, three months back, I think). Till then I used google for the technology news.
Although I have subscribed to the feeds, I can’t help checking the homepage (often re-reading the older posts).
I think my favourite article was the one announcing Firefox 3 alpha including the comments
(yes, I even read that old post from April)
Congratulations to CybernetNews on completing 1 year. It is always a pleasure to view the site.
1) I like all articles that are published by CN. However, Firefox ones are my favorites.
2) I Came across CN thru Google.
Great going – Ashley, Ryan and CybernetNews.
I 1st found you through the the site tweakguides.com on a post about portable Firefox from portableapps
Now I check in everyday!
My fav. was probably the one on portable Firefox, or listening to other people’s horror stories from Black Friday last month.
Happy Birthday Cybernet !!, I came across this blog via a Google BlogSearch for “Antivirus comparison” and I really enjoyed that post, so I bookmarked it and started reading your feeds…
Well, Even I started my blog purely as hobby and latter it turned me into a problogger
I have so many favorite articles that it would be hard to just pick one. If I had to pick a favorite, I would probably have to choose the “Firefox Tweak Guide”. I cannot remember how I first found the site but when I did I immediately added it to my favorites and subscribe to the RSS feed.
I was introduced to CN by a friend who found good antivirus software here, and since then Im a daily reader. The best of the reads were of the free anitvirus software that helped get an old PC running.
HAPPY Anniversary.
What’s your favorite article?
Well, there are more than one article and some of them include articles on “Web Layout”, “How to get Live ID”.
How did you come across CyberNet?
One day I was searching for “Tech news” on the google and accidentally came across “Cybernetnews”. It was the day when I was looking for Vista Transformation Pack and found Transformation Pack 5.5 on your website.
From that onwards, I visit your website every day as you are posting latest news from multiple places and it’s easier for me to visit one site to find the latest news rather than multiple sites.
I did get a windows Live ID using the article on your website, able to download the Windows XP Virtual Image (first time when it was posted) and tried to get free version of Office. Tried some softwares that were mentioned by you (which I would never come across).
So, your site did really help me in many areas.
Keep up the good Work
- Siva
Congratulations on a successful first year.
What’s your favorite article?
I would have to say all of them. This is one of the first pages I check each morning when coming into the office. I really enjoy the theme articles for each day of the week and the variety of subjects you guys post about. I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned from your time saving tips.
How did you come across CyberNet?
I believe I was searching for the best antivirus software and came across your comparison of the solutions out there. Been hooked since.
Keep up the excellent work!
Ryan J.
What’s your favorite article?
Thats a tough call. Its hard to pick a single favorite article. I guess the Firefox tweak guide is a great article. But I keep coming back for the contentious updates and the accurate information.
How did you come across CyberNet? I cant honestly tell you. I have been coming here since at least January/February of last year.
Happy first dude =D
Happy first blogiversary!
I first heard about you through Google for a mobile gmail hack and immediately added you to my feeds.
To many more years!!!
Hard to pick a favorite just by looking through your site, and looking through the 24 pages (15 submission each) of Digg submissions you’ve had when you do a search on your domain:
[digg.com]
But if I were to choose one that was most useful to me, it would be the post on Reducing Firefox’s Memory Leaking:
[tech.cybernetnews.com]
I was introduced early on to your site via Digg, and has been in my RSS, my Favicons, etc ever since. The content has only gotten better, and even though you can’t get dugg anymore…think of it this way; Digg is losing out (on your quality content in your posts), rather than you (as Digg’s traffic rarely justifies the bandwidth costs through ad revenue generated).
Congrats, and keep it up…your site/content has only gotten better with time.
I have loved the Firefox Tweak article. As far as how I found y’all, I cain’t be sure (heck I am not really sure when I found you, may be a month or so prior to registering). I wanna say I found y’all via a Goggle search.
Great job Ryan & Ashley!
I came across CyberNetNews when I downloaded and installed FireFox portable at work because I hated IE, and there was your site in the bookmarks toolbar, and been hooked on CyberNetNews ever since. Probably the most useful article that I’ve enjoyed the most is tweaking FireFox two to customize the features to make it more like FireFox 1.x
Favorite article: the SUPER video converter. That was really a useful tip!
[tech.cybernetnews.com]
Link with many sites, I don’t remember how I stumbled upon CyberNet News. I guess I was googling for some good tech news sites to subscribe to, when I came across CyberNet.
Happy Birthday to you!!!
My favorite article was “What you need to know to be a Firefox Nightly Tester and all about Firefox
I heard about your site via Digg
I don’t have a favorite post, but I like how you release the code to download things. Like when Firefox or something is released you provide a form to download it with.
I found you site by looking for things to add to my Google Home page.
Favorite article was how to make Xp look like vista and the Ping pong flash game. I’m still playing that time wasting game.
I think I found this page on digg and I’m reading it every day now, found some interesting and useful articles here.
My favorite article is probably how to make Xp look like Vista, I still use the Vista theme but it’s really a hard decision.
HB!
Happy Anniversary Ryan & Ashley! You guys run a great blog, and I wish you the best of everything in the future!
I found this blog through digg I believe. About 4ish months ago (I’m probably way off on that).
My favorite post is [tech.cybernetnews.com] because without out, we wouldn’t be reading [tech.cybernetnews.com] today.
Happy Anniversary !
I must say that this place has really evolved from when I found it first. I think it was for a Google search on tweaking Firefox.
My favourite article must be the one on tweaking Firefox itself, which I have permanently bookmarked
The random ‘tech’ deals that you find and post are things I would never have found otherwise – Vista, WinRAR, Linux distros – the list just goes on.. People I know are usually shell-shocked when I pass them on
I don’t remember when I found this site I would have to guess that it was a search for something about firefox. I have been reading ever since I came across it.
When you added the forums I decided that it was time to take the plunge and finally register.
My favorite article, hard to say, anything to do with firefox, vista, or google maps.
Happy b-day
taf
this is one of the quality blogs i check every morning.. since the Internet is accessible to everyone with a connection, it is rare to find worth-reading articles all the time.
it would be difficult to choose the best article of all time but for a recent entry
[tech.cybernetnews.com]
came across to me as dead-on-time! my new thinkpad gave me a hard time with its different keyboard layout than to what i was previously used to. I still cant believe i didn’t think about looking for a “keytweak” application!
i found cybernet news from tecnorati when looking for good blogs to read at a time when i had lots of free time in my hands.. im glad i found you guys!
i will keep reading this blog everyday as long as you keep posting articles with focus on quality content rather than quantity.. congratulations
I don’t remember how I came across Cybernet News, but I do check in at least once a day now.
I really liked the article titled “What Are Your Favorite Firefox Extensions” It’s great to see what other people are using. I usually find something new to play with from the articles here.
Keep up the good work, and the new design turned out really great.
Kevin Fonda
Congratulations guys and here is to another great year!
It is my favorite news website.
When I haven’t free time (just like last 2 weeks), I’m watching only two websites: “CyberNet News” and “Mozilla Developer News”.
Happy birthday!
Why did I only just find this??
I don’t remember how I found Cybernet.
However, my favourite article is one of the webrowser wedesday posts, the most recent one in fact. 200 Extensions in Firefox.
1) Firefox related. 200 extension same time espically it’s nice to see how like internet explorer with lots of spyware/adware extension you can get it
2) From Digg Firefox 2 Alpha 1 RC1 article
I discovered this site, like so many did, via the 200 extensions post.
My favorite article, however, is the one about Royale Noir, which I am VERY happily using!
The article :: [tech.cybernetnews.com] :: was the best one for me, by the way I love reading all the posts.
Happy birthday!
The article i loved most was “200 Firefox Extensions Installed At One Time!”.
i found the site while searching for Firefox guides using Google.
thanks for great help
1- My favorite article was how to fix Firefox memory leaks.
2- I came across this site after submitting a google search
in an effort to resolve my problem.
Thanks for the great site!
200 firefox extensions.
Metafilter.
Happy Anniversary !
I think the first ever visit was about What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly Tester when i was looking on google and digg about nightly firefox builds
[tech.cybernetnews.com]
Definitely the Firefox 2 Tweak Guide.
I was linked here once through digg.com, I believe. Found the site so nice and informative that I subscribed to the feed
Favorite article: [tech.cybernetnews.com]
I like this one the best b/c you mention my brilliance with regards to Firefox.
Found: digg.com (back when this place first started showing up there…before they banned you)
I just send the BlogAds invite to your email address. Let me know, if you haven’t received it.
I just got it…thanks a lot Thilak!
My favorite articles is the Learn GFirefox series. I have learnt a lot from these.
I linked to Cybernetnews from a recommendation at an unrembered site.