hathix.com’s second birthday & year in review

happy birthday cake elephant box cartoon
That’s one lucky elephant.

hathix.com is finishing up its 2nd year of existence. As has become tradition, I’m making a blog post highlighting everything I’ve done in the last year and taking a look at what’s in store for next year.

Check out last year’s recap – the first ever – and follow me into some stats and news from hathix.com’s sophomore year.

The big events

Last year was my creation year, where I developed hathix.com and the associated software (apps and games.) This year I narrowed my focus and worked on a handful of major projects that represent huge upgrades to hathix.com:

  • Cabra mobile, the ultimate studying app brought to phones, tablets, and the web
  • Baker’s Dozen, a web adventure game and sequel to Sprinkle Safari

Some smaller projects that still deserve mention:

  • An online hub for graphing calculator programs (for TI graphing calculators.)
  • A simple and powerful home page.
  • Further updates to the desktop version of Cabra.
  • More work on the hathix blog.

Let’s take a look at these – but first, some yummy website stats.

Delicious website stats

A small cake slice2012-2013 was a great year for hathix.com. It completely obliterated last year’s totals – it got 11 times as many visitors as last year! Here are some more stats – important, interesting, or just meaningless – for you to chew on.

Since February 13, 2012:

hathix visitor stats by country
Top visitor countries: US, UK, Thailand, Canada, Germany.
  • 60,738 visits (11x as high as last year)
  • 133,670 pageviews (9.94x as high as last year)
  • Visitors came from 168 countries (81 more than last year)
  • 19,203 outlinks
  • 89,284 minutes – or 62 days – spent on the site by visitors (8.49x as much as last year)

hathix.com’s best day was July 30, 2012, when 634 people visited.

hathix.com has really grown tremendously since last February – back then, it was a rarity to get above 50 hits a day. Now it’s rare for hathix.com to get less than 300.

hathix.com visits over the last 2 years. The last point is low since it's halfway through the month.
hathix.com visits over the last 2 years. The last point is low since it’s halfway through the month of February.

Some more breakdowns:

  • 91% of visitors came from desktop, 9% from mobile
  • Top browsers: Chrome (46%), Internet Explorer (25%), Firefox (16%), Safari (12%), Opera (1%)
  • Top operating systems: Windows (80%), Mac (10%), Android (5%), Linux (2%)
  • Top countries: USA (56%), UK (5%), Thailand (5%), Canada (3%), Germany (2%)
  • Top search engines: Google (43%), Google Images (45%), Bing (8%), Yahoo (1%)
  • Most common search engine keywords: mla format, mla format template, cute cartoon animals, box, mla template
  • Biggest referring sites: giveawayoftheday.com, google.com, facebook.com, google.co.th, google.com.vn
  • Most common local times to visit: the late afternoon and evening: 4-5pm, 8-9pm, 3-4pm, 5-6pm, 2-3pm
  • Least common local times to visit: the early morning: 4-5am, 5-6am, 3-4am, 6-7am, 2-3am

Cabra mobile – studying on the go

A screenshot of Cabra mobile. It's designed to look and work great on phones, tablets, and computers.
A screenshot of Cabra mobile. It’s designed to look and work great on phones, tablets, and computers.

My biggest project this year was creating a version of Cabra, my free studying app, for phones and tablets (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, etc.)

I began developing it in summer 2012 and released it in August. I’m going to make a more detailed blog post on Cabra mobile later, but suffice to say it’s been a huge success. It’s gotten 22,051 uses online.

It’s available on Android, iOS, Chrome, Firefox, and pretty much any other platform you can imagine. It’s essentially a web app so you can use it on any device that has internet connection.

Baker’s Dozen – a sequel to Sprinkle Safari

You’ll recall that I spent a lot of time last year developing a web adventure game, Sprinkle Safari. Well, once I’d finished that I really felt like diving back into the world of missing donuts, cartoon animals, bumbling bad guys, and cheesy dialogues, so I started work on a sequel to Sprinkle Safari, which I’ve dubbed Baker’s Dozen.

The world's donuts have been stolen again in Baker's Dozen, and it's up to you to save them.
The world’s donuts have been stolen again in Baker’s Dozen, and it’s up to you to save them.

I’ve spent a ton of time working on it – I’ve been at it since May – and yet it’s far from completed. That should tell you a bit about how deep I intend to make it. For now, you can play some sample levels to get a feel for what the final game will be like.

I’ll make another big blog post when the game’s finished. Stay tuned.

the hathix blog

I’ve continued work on the hathix blog and made quite a few blog posts. The blog’s been extremely successful and gotten a ton of visitors.

  • 12 posts this year
  • 56,873 visitors (not all of these are counted in the hathix.com stats)

The blog’s best month was December 2012, when it received 11,238 views. Its best day was December 10, 2012, when it received 1,090 views!

A screenshot of Word 2010 in MLA format.
hathix.com’s MLA template, which was very popular amongst students this year.

The top posts:

Some other projects

There are always a few side projects I have that I never really publicize. Here are a few I’ve been working on:

  • A hub for programs for TI graphing calculators. Here you can download programs to help you with math/science classes or calculator games for boring days in math class.
  • An even better home page. This summer I gave hathix.com’s simple home page a serious revamp to look and work even better. Check it out – you may like it.
  • More updates to the desktop version of Cabra. The latest version (0.7.0) lets you redeem points you earn from studying for virtual prizes – a great motivator. I’m planning more major releases in the future that integrate more with Cabra mobile.
  • A secret project that has absolutely nothing to do with computers or technology. Watch this space.

So in conclusion…

2012-2013, hathix.com’s second year, has been a year of huge growth (11-fold!) and major new projects. I think I did a good job of building off of my previous software/website development and acquiring some new skills in the process.

2013-2014, year #3, is going to be a tough one for me personally as I finish up my junior year of high school, enter senior year, do college applications, and prepare for college. Despite that, I’m still going to spend some time on my favorite hobby, hathix.com. Year #3 will focus on refining existing projects on hathix.com and finishing ongoing projects. I don’t anticipate any major new developments. Other goals:

  • More growth – at least twice as many hits as this year
  • More marketing – getting the word out about hathix and its blog/software/games.
  • More consistent blog posting – at least 2 blog posts per month.
  • More diversification – perhaps creating some content that has nothing to do with technology.

Year #2 has really turned hathix.com from a baby to a legitimate website. I’m looking forward to the next year, which promises even better things.

Published by

Neel Mehta

Harvard College. Web developer. Sometime philosopher. Baseball junkie.

3 thoughts on “hathix.com’s second birthday & year in review”

  1. Great!! Though I don’t understand much of what you have said, I am sure you have spent a lot of creative time to achieve this. All the best to you.

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