<Updated 18th July 2012>

I want to start this post with a huge THANK YOU.

Thank you to all the #wp7au peeps out there who have taken the time to read my posts, contribute with comments, tip-off’s, news stories, forum entries, guest posts, site improvements, poll votes, links, tweets and every other conceivable way that you have all helped WPDownUnder get over the line on our 1st Birthday.

THANKS

 *** UPDATE ***

Apologies for the delay with updating this post with the winners. WPDownUnder is pleased to now confirm that the 3 random winners (selected by the web service for the giveaway, not ourselves) have been contacted and confirmed as all Australian entrants (actually, at least 2 of them are Kiwi expats in Australia lol) !!!

It gives us great pleasure to confirm that our first ever giveaway and 1st Birthday winners are:

• 1st Prize: Glen Roberts (@GTRoberts) – a long-standing and active #wp7au supporter/contributor!
• 2nd Prize: Bruce Sithole &
• 3rd Prize:  Daniel Tickell.

THANKS to all of you who entered the competition, Liked our Facebook page and for all the amazing support and feedback you have given to our little site over the past 12m etc.

Prizes will be sent out later this week, and a final HUGE thanks to the Marketing team at Nokia for the awesome Nokia Lumia 1st prize! Quite simply, the Amazing Everyday!

We promise it won’t take until our 2nd Birthday for our next competition/giveaway! 

* * * * *

ORIGINAL POST: 

So it’s with great pleasure that I can announce that kicking off on the date of our first Birthday – WPDownUnder will be having a Reader Giveaway / competition!

Make sure you click the picture below to be taken to our Facebook Page; Like us there, and then check back in a few days for how you can get yourself the maximum number of entries for a chance to win a Nokia Lumia 800 (matched to your carrier of choice), an I <3 Windows Phone T-Shirt or some I <3 WP Stickers/Magnets ! It’s that easy!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

A special thanks to Nokia Australia for all their continued support of Windows Phone DownUnder and for the awesome first prize in our 1st Birthday celebrations!

UPDATE:

Hey everyone, this page has now been refreshed with the ability to enter the competition directly above! Your response has been amazing with a flood of competition entries, messages of goodwill etc all helping to show A) that the #wp7au community is awesome and B) People dig free stuff!

Reflecting on our first 12 months (discounting the few months with trainer-wheels as Sheeds’ Blog) – we thought we’d share some of our key numbers!

The Numbers:

• Just over 300 published posts.
• 1/4 Million total page views.
• Almost 150,000 visits.
• Growth to over 10,000 visitors per month (see Visitor Map below).
• More than 80,000 unique visitors.
• 61% Visits from Australia, 17% from the US & the balance from all over the world (see Visitor Map below).
• 44% of Visits using IE, 24% Chrome, 18% Firefox vs. the rest.
• Ironically, Devices used to visit WPDU show (majority undefined aside) iPad 20%, iPhone 11.5% and Lumia 800 7.4% before the long tail!

Some Highlights:

• The “Where’s my Update pages” through Mango’s release in 2011.
• Creation of the “Developed Down Under” Campaign, and support and marketing of the brilliant accompanying App created by Niall of mobilwares.net – and broader support for Aussie Developers.
• Advocacy, support and engagement of the Windows Phone platform and existing and potential users in Australia through Twitter, Whirlpool, Telstra CrowdSupport, Facebook, WPDownUnder site and more!
• Campaigning to Aussie Carriers to improve their engagement and support (Apps. services, updates etc) for Windows Phone (resulting Software Updates pages and HD Voice pages at Telstra websites) etc.
• Broad information, buying guides, breaking stories, availability etc in covering Windows Phone in the RETAIL world, for sellers and buyers.
• Thoughtful, engaging and topical editorials on all aspects of Windows Phone Down Under.
• Interviews, Exclusives, Tip-off’s, New device launches and close coverage of the much-anticipated (and needed) arrival of Nokia’s Lumia range to inject a shot into the platform in Australia.
• Launch of the official WPDownUnder App for Windows Phone – thanks to the amazing efforts of Handiware – and Garry Holden! Thanks so much for all your hard work here Garry – and the ratings show what a top job you have done! PS – keep an eye out in the Windows 8 store too folks
• Guest posts by readers and fellow WP7 Aussie community members (not as many as I wanted sorry!)
• An overdue (and far from complete) site overhaul to tweak and improve the appearance of the site (thanks in particular to Niall and Mobilenova!)
• And much, much more….

We at WPDownUnder (meaning me LOL) are truly grateful for all your support and feedback – and despite a busy schedule, hope to continue to grow and develop the site and what we do for Windows Phone Down Under.

Sheeds.

(PS If you haven’t grabbed our WPDU App yet – just click the large WPDU Pic above to open the marketplace and download now!)