It’s been slightly more than two months since we unveiled the Commons Cam. In those two months, we saw traffic to our site skyrocket, read three local newspaper articles about the camera, won an award, and even met two folks who traveled all the way from Washington state to see the camera in person.

I think we can say that the Commons Cam has been an unqualified success. It’s popularity certainly took us by surprise. It speaks volumes about interesting downtown Ithaca is to people all over the world.

Speaking of that, here’s some interesting things we learned about you, our visitors:

• We’ve had visitors from 89 countries and 6 continents get a glimpse of downtown Ithaca.
• Besides the U.S., the Commons Cam is most popular in Germany (4.26% of visitors), followed closely by the U.K. (4.24%) and Finland (3.26%).
• A good chunk of you (15%) stay on the page for more than 10 minutes at a time.
• The most popular day do far was March 17th, 2007, the afternoon of the anti-war protest, when over 600 people viewed the gathering through the Commons Cam.
• The computer that powers the Commons Cam is a lonely little Dell that also searches for gravity waves.
• We use Google Analytics to gather our statistics.

Since so many people are viewing the Commons Cam, we really, really want to get a better camera. Our current hardware cost less than a meal at Moosewood, so it won’t be hard to move up. We recently added a donations button on our Commons Cam site to aid us in this endeavor. So if you’re feeling generous, you can donate $5 to the Commons Cam Improvement Fund using PayPal. It’s safe, secure, and all major credit cards are accepted.

Thanks again to all you curious people out there.