Thousands upon thousands of consumers in cities across America are taking delivery of their new iPads today, and many more lined up at Apple Stores and other retailers to be among the first to own Apple’s latest iOS-powered tablet. Early reviews were overwhelmingly favorable — Gizmodo summed them up nicely — and countless consumers have taken to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to sing praises of Apple’s new slate. Seeing the incessant chatter slide through a Twitter timeline is one thing, but popular ad network Chitika has taken iPad-watching to the next level. Read on for more.

Developers at Chitika have created a special webpage they call the new iPad tracker. As the name might suggest, the firm’s widget tracks the proliferation of Apple’s third-generation iPad as consumers across the country use them to load apps and visit websites that serve Chitika advertisements. Chitika’s network identifies new iPads according to their unique user agent string, which is read each time ads are served to a device.

The new iPad tracker shows three unique sets of data in real-time. First, a pie chart represents new iPad usage versus first-generation iPad and iPad 2 usage over the course of the past hour. The line chart that follows displays third-generation iPad adoption per hour in a time series, and the third shows new iPad adoption by state.

Apple’s new iPad features a dual-core Apple A5X processor with integrated quad-core graphics, a new 5-megapixel camera, optional 4G LTE connectivity and a high-definition Retina Display. BGR published a hands-on preview of the new Apple iPad on Friday, and we said its new display looks “unreal, like it’s not a digital display at all, but an actual printed glossy photo.”