How international is Hubpages?

1. 82

   The Indexerposted 16 years ago

   The recent flood of messages complaining that the "Hublove" contest only applying to US entrants has brought home just how many active and successful hubbers there are from other parts of the English-speaking world. My first point is therefore to ask, does anyone know just what percentage of the Hubpages community is in each country?
   
   My second point is to congratulate Hubpages in making it so easy for non-US writers to be successful hubbers. I also belong to Helium, but I am becoming very disheartened with its US-centric attitude. I know that I should not use this Forum to knock the efforts of others, but I wonder if other people are also aware of this contrast?
   
   The best thing about Hubpages is its complete openness as regards the topics that people can write about. I have taken advantage of this, and I can see that many others have done the same. This is not so easy with Helium, where you are channelled into writing on certain subjects, many of which make little sense if you are not a US resident. If I have a criticism of the US of A, it is that so many of its residents have a blinkered view of the world, expecting everyone to know about what interests them but taking little trouble to find out about anything beyond their borders. There is some of this isolationism in Hubpages, but nothing like as much as in Helium.
   
   There are plenty of other good things about Hubpages, by the way!

   replyreport
2. 85

   gamergirlposted 16 years ago

   I don't think Hubpages is isolationist at all.  We're a hugely diverse community that interacts pretty well together overall, not counting the spammers wanting to give us odd loans or teach us how to blog better.

   replyreport
   1. 64

      C.M. Vanderlindenposted 16 years agoin reply to this

      As well as the dozens who just want to teach us how to get rich online
      
      Even with those spammers/trolls, Hubpages is easily the nicest online community I've ever been a member of.

      replyreport
3. 57

   Mark Knowlesposted 16 years ago

   You could say the same about any country though. I know plenty of English people who's only trip overseas is to a pub in Torremelinos. And they were offended that some of the menu was in Spanish

   replyreport
4. STAFF

   pauldeedsposted 16 years ago

   Below is the breakdown of traffic to hubpages by country.  This doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the core HubPages community because a majority of visitors are just people passing by, but may be interesting nevertheless.
   
   United States - 64%
   United Kingdom - 6.5%
   Canada - 5.8%
   India - 4.8%
   Philippines - 2.2%
   Australia - 1.9%
   Malaysia - 0.8%
   Germany - 0.7%
   Singapore - 0.7%
   ...
   
   Of course, to determine what this actually means you'd want to know the total population of English speaking internet connected people in each of these countries.

   replyreport
5. 82

   The Indexerposted 16 years ago

   Whoops! Please don't get me wrong, folks, I'm not trying trying to knock any hubber, indeed I was trying to point out a contrast between Hubpages and Helium, to the former's advantage.
   
   I agree that there are plenty of Brits who believe that the way to make a Frenchman or Spaniard understand English is to to shout it more loudly! I also find it hard to understand the mentality of people who go abroad and expect it to be exactly the same as back home.
   
   No, my complaint, if such it was, was about writers who expect everyone to know who a certain baseball or American football player is. The thing about American sport is that it doesn't travel. Nobody else (or hardly anyone else) plays the same sports that you do, and you play very few sports that the rest of the world takes seriously. That in itself is a form of isolationism, but there are others, such as not adopting the metric system of measurements, being so slow at accepting the facts of global warming, and so on.
   
   I see some of this on Hubpages, but not a lot. That's a good thing, and I'm accordingly delighted. I'm all for losing my own blinkers and being educated in what goes on elsewhere in the world and how other people think. Hubpages is already an international community, and, if we all work at it, it can only become more so.

   replyreport
6. 82

   The Indexerposted 16 years ago

   Paul,
   Thanks for the breakdown - that is indeed an interesting answer!

   replyreport