It was a big year here at MotoringFile. For one we went through a name change. Then we went through a complete redesign. And through it all we had ton of stories. Here are some of the more interesting statistics for the year and some of the stories that drove them.

Average daily unique visits went through the roof in the last 12 months. In January we were averaging around 2200 daily. This past month we'll be close to 6000 a day.
In all we managed to get just miss the 30,000,000 hit mark for 2004. Not bad for non-forums based news/weblog site.

Web browser stats also changed throughout the year. It would appear that Microsoft IE was gradually getting less popular in 2004. It went from around 83% of all traffic to 69% by the end of the year. Apple's Safari web broswer went from 8% to 12% and the increasingly popular Firefox went from about zero to 14% in one year. It's probably worth noting that MotoringFile strongly recommends using Firefox on a PC or Safari on a Mac for optimal rendering. Both browsers will make your machine much more secure as well. They may make you a bit more secure personally too 🙂

There was also a subtle change in PC platform stats. Microsoft Windows (as expected) held the top spot. However it went from 85% in the begining of the year to 80% by December. The Macintosh came in second and increased it's percentage from 12% to over 15% by year's end. Linux came in a distant third with .05% (up from .02%).

The biggest stories of the year unsurprisingly revolved around the future of the MINI. Here are the top ten in order of popularity:

Personally I think our biggest story was the incredible scoop we got on the new 2005 options like the MCS auto and LSD on May 14th.

In terms of review of the year I'd have to go with the MCS Convertible. Okay, I know that's too easy of an answer. Let's talk product review of the year. The one that garnered the most excitment was probably the Official Armrest review sent in by Josh Wardell. Beyond that the other two that standout personally and in terms of comments were the Ian Cull Auto-Up Circuit and the Official MINI/iPod adapter.

On behalf of all the contributors at MotoringFile from 2004 I'd like to give a big thanks to the readers and sponsors of the site. It's corny yes, however we really wouldn't be what we are today without your support.

Happy New Year!