Heyyo Poptropicans, it’s Ultimate iPad Expert here with the 2017 PHB Readers’ Survey results and analysis!
It’s been a little while of a wait since the initial survey, but the results are all here, and ready for your viewing. Over the week of the survey, we received 157 survey responses which helped to tally up what we think is a fairly accurate representation of our more active PHB readers.Once everything got tallied up, I had to go in
Once everything got tallied up, I had to go in and make all the results into these separate charts. I used Google Sheets to create them, which actually allows the charts to be interactive. You can hover over different sections to see more details about a specific group in the charts, like to see how many people chose that option and what the percentage is. Similarly, there are a couple maps that show the global and domestic spread of the PHB’s reach (If the maps don’t load for some reason, try refreshing the page, Google seems to not want to load them occasionally).
So, let’s get into the results!
Did you participate in the 2014 Survey?
Looking back 3 years now, the PHB held a survey even before I joined the PHB. A fairly straight forward question we asked this time, is how many people took both this and the 2014 surveys.
We can see here from this chart that only about 15% of this year’s survey takers also took the 2014 study. This is only slightly different from last year’s where only 18.5% had taken the 2014 study.
Did you participate in the 2016 Survey?
Now moving on to a very similar question as the last. Here we were curious to find out how many people that took last year’s survey were back again to take this one.
About 38% of users are return survey-takers, as you can see. Quite an increase from the 2014 question, but still somewhat surprising. A quite large majority of this year’s survey-takers didn’t even take last year’s, which I find to be somewhat surprising. It seems quite a few newer users have been becoming more involved for this year.
What is your gender?
Another very simple question, we asked the survey takers to tell us their gender.
As wee can see from this gender makeup, the male to female ratio is about 1:2, although there is a larger percentage of men this year than took the survey last year. This difference is only about 3%, but still an interesting trend to note.
What is your age?
Now moving on to age. The age of survey-users, seems to easily be dominated by the 9-17 range, which (adding those three groups) gives it a whopping 87.1% majority. This, of course, does make sense, considering Poptropica’s general age range. Something interesting to note is that both the 9 to 11 and 12 to 14 ranges have shrunk since last year’s survey, while the 15 to 17 and 18 to 21 ranges have definitely grown. It seems the community is beginning to grow older.
What country do you live in?
Here we have quite a fascinating question in my opinion. The international makeup of the PHB reader fanbase.
The more survey participants in that country, the darker the shade of red it appears on this map. Similarly, the lighter the red, the fewer survey participants there are in that country. And if the country shows as gray, then no participants were from that country.
Clearly the US seems to dominate, which is not entirely surprising considering the blog is in English, and the US has the largest English-speaking population in the world. Below is a chart excluding the US, for sake of comparison.
Below are two pie charts to also explain the country makeup.
As we can even more clearly see, the US dominates the question, with a huge 71.5% of responders being American. This just so happens to be the exact same percentage of Americans as last year’s survey.
After the US, this year’s runner-ups are Australia (with 5.7% overall, 20% excluding Americans), Canada (with 4.4% overall, 15.6% excluding Americans), and Singapore (with the same 4.4% overall, 15.6% excluding Americans). This is followed by the UK, India, the Phillippines, Oman, Hong Kong, and Malaysia all with only 2 survey-takers from each.
Still quite a wide-spread group of readers from all different corners of the globe.
If you live in the US, which state or territory do you live in?
Similar to the last question, but we’re here to find out what that 71.5% is spread out like.
Just like last year, the more popular states have higher percentages this time around. The top 5 are California (15%), Florida (8.4%), Texas (6.5%), Illinois (5.6%), and North Carolina (5.6%), all of which are in the top 10 most populous states.
When did you first find Poptropica?
Moving on now to the questions relating to the game itself. Here we ask about the player’s first year of Poptropica.
The most popular year is 2010, just as we found it was last year. Overall, however, it seems that most people joined Poptropica in the earlier years. Much less split than it was in last year’s survey results. Quite a bit of change in people who joined when I did, in 2011 (as compared to last year), which is a little odd.
How often do you play Poptropica?
As we see from this question, it seems that most people play Poptropica more in the center categories. The most populous category is that of a few times a week with 19.1% of responders, the same category had 18.8% last year, so quite similar.
Fairly split otherwise, however, over the different time frames, but definitely seems that the results are congragating somewhere in the center.
Are you a member on Poptropica?
When it comes to membership, it seems that the results are not as split. Only 20.4% of participants have memberships currently. On the flip side, 79.6% are not currently members, with 51% of those not having ever had a membership.
Things are slightly on the up from last year, however, a higher percentage has membership this year, although it’s only a little bit.
When did you first find the PHB?
And now for a new section of questioning, The PHB-involved questions. Here we ask when you first found the PHB.
The bar graph for this one is quite interesting to me. It almost looks like a check mark shape. A fairly decent number to start then it declined towards 2010, and then rose each year beyond that (except, of course, 2017 has just begun, so it wouldn’t be at this time).
The years 2015 (23.6%) and 2016 (27.4%) make up over 50% of the overall tally, however, which is really quite interesting in my mind. Seems to be growth for the PHB viewership, as well as older people having left more recently.
How did you find the PHB?
We asked when, but now we ask how you found the PHB.
Just like last year, an overwhelming percentage found the PHB via web searching, although this percentage is down 9.5% from last year’s results (82.1% to 72.6%). A larger number of you guys have found us through new avenues!
How often do you visit the PHB?
For this new question, we find out how frequent your viewership.
There is change from last year’s survey, and it seems all the readers are less commonly reading up on the PHB. The most popular of the categories is not the most frequent choice, as it was last year, this year at 19.1% the most popular is once a day.
This year, it does seem that the different categories are more gradual by category, accumulating arond that largest category. Overall, it seems people aren’t as frequent on the PHB, my guess is this could be because of the lower amount of news from the Creators.
What types of PHB blog posts do you read frequently?
Here we have a little insight as to what you, the readers, spend your time reading up on.
Similar to last year, the two top categories of posts are News with 105 responders and Blog Updates with 90 responders. Definitely makes sense that you would mostly be coming here to here the latest Pop news, as that is what we were originally made as a blog to get out there.
Very much appreciated that many of you chose PMFM as one of your choice, however, glad my hours of editing seem to be worth it in the end. 
How likely is it that you would recommend the PHB to a friend or a colleague?
Now to the question of recommendation. As shown, over half of you guys suggested an 8, 9, or 10 as your choice of response, so it seems you consider the blog pretty highly. Thanks!
The choice of 10 is the most chosen, being more than double the next largest, 7.
What portions of the PHB/PHN do you regularly browse?
Unlike last year’s survey, the top two choices actually switched for this year. News and sneak peeks became the most popular category, over Island walkthroughs, which was #1.
Other than that change, not a whole lot difference is in the comparison between categories, aside from the fact that the our chat, the Poptropica Help Chat, seems to have grown in use since last year.
What other Poptropica blogs or Poptropica-related sties do you frequently visit?
And now onto our final quantified question. Here we asked you guys about your preferred sites outside of the PHB that you visit frequently.
Similar to last year, the most popular choice was the Creators’ Blog which recieved a whopping 101 participants’ choosing. The next three outliers turned out to be Thinknoodles (with 65), Tall Cactus’ Poptropica Blog (with 43), and our very own Perfect Sky’s YouTube channel (with 39).
All the other choices had quite a differing range, but all got their fair share of around 20 or so, many of them being part of the Poptropica Bloggers’ Network.
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Well, this concludes this year’s survey analysis! Nice job on making your way through this long post, hope you enjoyed it. Last year, I made a “Part 2,” where I went over questions and comments from the survey. If you guys want it, I’ll do it again for this year.
Be sure to comment your thoughts below. And I hope you’ll join us next year for the 2018 survey!
Meme King out. 
• Ultimate iPad Expert •
