Still that metric shows much lower counts than it showed for much of late 2011 and earlier this year. I don't have the numbers but when there was a rally or selloff, there was numbers like 600 or more concurrent if I remember correctly. Although, it just as easily could have been bots / fabricated connections since people are using it for making trade decisions.
Bear in mind that there are now more alternative live feed viewers (clarmoody and btccharts at least) than there were in 2011. If the users have divided equally then the ~200 on mtgoxlive in 2012 is equivalent of 600 on mtgoxlive in 2011.
I don't know what the division actually is, but it's certainly incorrect to use connection count measures over years as any kind of metric.
ok, i need and education then. i thought the Connected on mtgoxlive meant the users connected to their accts to trade, not just connected to mtgoxlive. am i wrong?