As the clock ticks down on 2013, it's a good time to take a look back at what readers of this blog clicked on most.

Before I saw the actual stats provided to me by the editors here at ZDNet, I was predicting that pieces about the Windows Blue wave would likely be among my most popular. I also expected one or more pieces about CEO Steve Ballmer's pending retirement might figure prominently in my top ten.

I wasn't too far off. But my most highly trafficked story surprised me, though it really shouldn't have, given how much e-mail I received on the topic.

A frequently-asked question post I did about Microsoft's phase-out of Hotmail and replacement of it with Outlook.com was my most popular post in 2013. While Microsoft did warn users that this was the plan, many non-tech-savvy users were bewildered by the change. They couldn't find their contacts, calendars and old e-mail messages. They weren't clear as to how and if they should try to merge their e-mail accounts and whether or not they could keep their Hotmail addresses. I felt like I was running a Hotmail help-desk -- complete with angry users railing at me (not Microsoft) for taking away their familiar interface.

Though this cut-over happened months ago, just this past weekend, I received yet another e-mail message from a Hotmail user who was worried that Microsoft was poised to try to "convert" her from Hotmail. The not-so-surprising takeaway here -- and this applies to Windows 8.1, too -- is most users don't like change. Especially change that they don't perceive as improving their computing experience.

Without further ado, here's a list of my top 10 posts (traffic-wise, not comment-wise) for 2013:

Read more at: Microsoft 2013 year in review: It was (almost) all about 'Blue' | ZDNet

Posted By: Brink
30 Dec 2013