Appatic

Is what a post at the Building Windows 8 Blog revealed

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2011/09/02/refl​ecting-on-our-first-conversations-part-2.aspx

Nothing i didn't know for reasons i cannot say. But things i didn't know and was extremely surprised about were some bits of Data Telemetry shared by Windows President Steve Sinofsky"

"Our opt-in usage telemetry shows that in July, Windows Media Center was launched by 6% of Windows 7 users globally with the heaviest usage in Russia, Mexico, and Brazil (frequency and time). However, most people are just looking around; only one quarter (25% of 6%) of these people used it for more than 10 minutes per session (individual averages), and in 59% of Media Center sessions (by these 6% of users) we see almost no activity (less than a minute or two of usage). TV was the most common scenario we observed, and not surprisingly, traditional media (DVD and CD) are less common (and declining over time) than streaming and file-based content"

On one hand it confirms that Media Center has a "hidden gem" feature problem. On the other hand i am now finding out that the 3 countries where Media Center is used the most and in a hardcore way are Mexico, Brazil and Russia.

After thinking it a bit. I think i know why is that. In Mexico, cheap PC TV-cards and Cable-cards use are a big thing. First reason all comes down to people liking to record the shows (a dvd 5 disc here goes for as low as 15 cents of a dollar) and then share them around in such a casual way that many would be surprised.
Second reason is the piracy industry. Mexico and Russia happen to have the most sophisticated pirate industries there are, Just after the one in China. In fact the Top 3 piracy countries are China, Russia and Mexico. Accounting for a shocking 70% of all video and audio piracy in the world as of 2010.

Now it looks like Brazil may be the fourth one. Something that is not surprising as Brazil got one of the most heavy handed taxations in the world when it comes to tech. I wonder if that is also the case for CD's and DVD's. Yet this Telemetry Data from Microsoft appears to mean YES, that is the case or else something is going on at Brazil i don't know about.

Very interesting data in that post and good news for all of us that love Windows Media Center.

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