Tuesday 30 November 2010

The top 10 places on Foursquare in the US

Based on the number of checkins, week ending 28th November 2010 (Includes Black Friday)



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Source:  AdAge, 29th November 2010.  Updated stats here.

Monday 29 November 2010

Samsung has sold 600,000 Galaxy Tabs

"According to a report from Korean newspaper The Korean Herald, Samsung has confirmed global sales numbers for its virgin tablet offering. In its first month of availability, the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab has sold 600,000 units — likely making it the most popular Android tablet in the world. Samsung is reportedly pleased with the Galaxy Tab’s performance in its premier month, saying demand outpaced supply in most markets."
Source:  BGR, 22nd November 2010

Friday 26 November 2010

China has 39m 3G subscribers

"China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) yesterday revealed that as of the end of October, China had reached 38.64 mln 3G mobile subscribers."
Source:  Beijing Times, reported by Marbridge Daily, 26th November 2010

Thursday 25 November 2010

The mobile game Angry Birds has been downloaded 36m times

"With more than 36m downloads under its wing, Angry Birds has quickly become a mobile gaming phenomenon.
And now the popular puzzler is set to move into the living room, with versions for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii scheduled for a 2011 release.
In less than a year, Angry Birds has captured the imagination of millions of smartphone owners. Its simple premise, where birds are catapulted into different structures hiding egg-stealing pigs, brought more than 2m downloads in the first weekend alone."

Wednesday 24 November 2010

China has 842m mobile phone subscribers and 300m fixed line phone subscribers

"Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 7.56 mln in October, with mobile subscribers growing by 8.74 mln to 842.04 mln, and fixed-line subscribers dropping by 1.18 mln to 300.09 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the PHS subscriber base declined by 1.17 mln subs to 31.65 mln, while traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscribers decreased by 20,000 to 268.44 mln.
A total of 67.38 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of October, bringing the total for the first 10 months of 2010 to 685.27 bln, a 6.8% increase over the figure during the same period of 2009."
Source:  China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) figures for ~October 2010, reported by Marbridge Daily, 24th November 2010

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Roughly one UK home in three has a Nintendo Wii

"Nintendo has been boasting about how many people own a Wii console in the UK, based on data gathered by Chart Track.
EuroGamer reports that the Chart Track figures indicate that since its launch, 8.3 million Wii consoles have been sold in the UK. With the total number of UK households put at 24.9 million by the ONS, that works out at bang on a third of the population."
Source:  Tech Watch, 4th October 2010

Monday 22 November 2010

Spotify UK makes 60% of its revenues from subscriptions

"Here are highlights of the 2009 financial accounts for Spotify Limited, its UK-headquartered arm that is really the guts of the operations:
- The operating loss was £16.4 million for 2009 as a whole
- Net loss after taxation was £16.66 million
- Revenues for 2009 were £11.32 million
- Cost of sales was £18.82 million
- Distribution was £608,711
- Administrative expenses were £8.29 million
Spotify’s revenue by category was:
- £4.51 million from sales of advertisements in 2009, just under 40% of revenue
- £6.81 million from subscriptions, just over 60% of revenue
- At the end of 2009 it had 23 employees
- Staff costs were £1.17 million"
Source:  Techcrunch Europe, 22nd November 2010

In 2009 more virtual roses were sold in the UK by Flirtomatic than real roses by Interflora

"The currency has quickly found favour among the growing and increasingly engaged online gaming community – and not just inside Facebook, the world's most popular social network. Flirtomatic, a social network with 1.8 million users in the UK, sold more virtual roses last year than Interflora sold real roses. Earlier this month, more than 100,000 Flirtomatic citizens "attended" its virtual firework display – online."
Source:  The Guardian, 19th November 2010
Via Interesting Snippets

Friday 19 November 2010

There are 506m mobile subscriptions in Africa

"The number of active mobile subscriptions in Africa crossed the half-a-billion mark in the third quarter of this year, to reach 506 million at end-September, according to research by UK-based Informa Telecoms & Media.
The report, published on the researcher’s website said at the end of the third quarter of this year, Africa accounted for 10% of the world’s mobile subscriptions and was one of the world’s fastest-growing regions – with the subscription numbers increasing 18% over the year to September."
Source:  Data from Informa Telecoms & Media, reported by PeaceFM Online, 14th November 2010
[Note - the story is not easily accessible on the Informa website]

Call of Duty: Black Ops generated $650m in revenues in the first 5 days

"Activision announced today that the latest release in the venerable franchise tallied over $650 million in worldwide revenue, according to internal figures, easily besting the previous record set by predecessor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 of $550 million.
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said that with the new mark, "Call of Duty has become the first entertainment property in history to set five-day launch records for two consecutive years across all forms of entertainment."
The feat, Activision claimed in its statement, bested any release in "theatrical box office, book, and video game sales." But that comparison might be unfair. The average hardcover book usually launches for around $25 or $30, while the average movie ticket costs about $10. Call of Duty: Black Ops on the Nintendo DS retails for $30, but PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game cost at least $60. It's a sizable difference.
When it comes to online play, Call of Duty: Black Ops performed just as well. According to statistics Microsoft furnished to Activision, over 2.6 million people played the title on Xbox Live on launch day. All told, over 5.9 million hours were logged on Xbox Live on the first day the game was available. Last year, Modern Warfare 2 was played for 5.2 million hours on launch day."

3m apps are downloaded from Nokia's Ovi store per day

"Nokia today announced that its Ovi Store has reached 3 million downloads per day, a milestone spurred by overall global demand and a recent update that gives users of Nokia's new Symbian smartphone family a friendlier look and feel as well as more popular apps and games. The company is also gaining significant software developer momentum with more than 400 000 new developers joining Forum Nokia in the past 12 months, and 92 surpassing the million download milestone for their apps."
Source:  Press release from Nokia, 18th November 2010

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Expandable ads are more effective than non-expandable ones

"For years, we’ve had great metrics – 6% avg. interaction rates, 15+ second avg. brand time, 2% click-through rate – but we haven’t always known what that means. Do these active users take action down the funnel? Does it really matter if the ad expands if we can’t tell what happens after they engage? A new PointRoll/Compete Research study has answered that question. And the answer is clear.
“We looked at how rich media display ads perform across various brand and response metrics and verticals and found statistical validation that expandables outperform non-expandables in every category we measured, including brand engagement, site visitations and search,” said Stephen DiMarco, Chief Marketing Officer of Compete.
The numbers look like this:
View-through reporting: Expandables outperformed non-expandables by an average of 64% and by as much as 108%.
Driving key purchase indicators (KPIs): Expandables outperformed non-expandable by an average 43% and by as much as 115%.
Driving brand search: Expandables outperformed non-expandables by an average of 39% and by as much as 155%.
Driving third party research site visitation: Expandables outperformed non-expandables by an average of 49% and by as much as 180%."
Source:  Research by PointRoll/Compete, reported in the PointRoll blog, 10th November 2010

Online ad spend hit $6.4bn in the US in Q3 2010

"Online advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $6.4 billion in Q3 2010, representing a 17 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to estimates presented moments ago by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in tandem with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
This marks the highest quarterly result ever for the industry.
This is not the first time IAB and PwC got to announce record numbers this year.
Last month, they said Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. were at $12.1 billion in the first half of 2010, setting a new half-year record that represented an 11.3 percent increase over the first half of 2009."
Source:  Techcrunch, 17th November 2010

Japanese social network Mixi delivers 84% of its page impressions to mobile users


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Source:  Page 11 of Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask & Answer, Morgan Stanley, 16th November 2010

Total annual global online advertising expenditure is equivalent to $46 per internet user


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Source:  Page 16 of Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask & Answer, Morgan Stanley, 16th November 2010
[Note - figures are estimates]

The most checked into places in the UK on Facebook

Current top 10:

1 - Alton Towers
2 - O2 Arena
3 - Emirates Stadium
4 - Old Trafford
5 - London Eye
6 - Trafalgar Square
7 - Tate Modern
8 - Leicester Square
9 - Buckingham Palace
10 - City of Manchester Stadium
Source & dynamic list of the top 50:  Visit Britain's Facebook page
Retrieved 17th November 2010

Tuesday 16 November 2010

Chinese microblogging site Weibo has more than 50m users

"At the first China Microblogging Developers Conference this morning, Chinese internet company Sina's (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblogging platform announced that it now has more than 50 mln users. Approximately 25 mln microblog updates are posted to the service every day; to date, the site hosts more than 2 bln microblog postings, and has formed partnerships with more than 10,000 other sites."
Source:  Marbridge Daily, 16th November 2010

10% of the Daily Mail's UK traffic is generated by referrals from Facebook

"Martin Clarke, the Daily Mail executive who runs Mail Online, revealed today that 10% of the website's UK traffic is generated by referrals from Facebook, a "gigantic free marketing engine".
Clarke told delegates at the Society of Editors annual conference in Glasgow that only Google directs more UK traffic to Mail Online and urged newspapers to embrace social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter.
"The social networks are becoming increasingly important to us," Clarke said. "If you want an engaging site, Facebook isn't a threat or a parasite but a gigantic free marketing engine.""

The global average click through rate (CTR) is 0.09%

"In its new Global Benchmark Report, MediaMind explores data showing that one of the major contributors to the decline in CTR for Standard Banners in recent years was the near financial meltdown following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. In fact, average global CTR declined from 0.11% in July ‘08 to 0.09% in October ’08. The good news is that in 2010, this downward trend has stopped at 0.09%.
Paradoxically, one of the major underlying reasons for the decline in CTR is the success of online display advertising and the exponential increase in the number of banners that users are exposed to. MediaMind found that users who are exposed to relatively few ads are more likely to have a high CTR as compared to users who are exposed to a high number of ads. The decline in CTR happens even though in absolute terms, users who are exposed to a high number of ads click more."
Source:  MediaMind blog, 16th November 2010
[Note - 0.09% CTR means that you get 9 clicks per 10,000 ad impressions]

Zoe Griffin makes £80,000 a year out of blogging and related activities

"Making money out of a blog is complicated. Approximately 40% of my revenue is from adverts. Depending on the size of the ad, I can charge between £500 to £1000 a month. I make approximately £200 a month through affiliate schemes like Skimlinks and Buy.at, where you pick banner ads and internal links to online stores and earn commission if someone buys as a result.
As a consultant, I charge an hourly rate to write blogs for fashion and beauty brands and earn anything from £500 to £1500 a month for each. I am advising a new lifestyle website www.gocitygirl.com about ways to get girls engaged with gossip, where I charge an hourly rate of £100/hr. I organise celebrity parties where I get paid between £2500 and £5000. I am often a talking head on TV programmes and Breakfast News, which is £100-£150 a time. I write features about celebrity destinations for Ryanair magazine which is a free holiday and approximately £400."
Source:  Stylist, November 2010
[2 other examples are given in the article]
[Hat-tip - Honk]

Microsoft sold 1 million Kinects in the first 10 days

"Microsoft has just announced it has sold more than 1 million units of Kinect for Xbox 360 worldwide in the first 10 days after the product’s launch.
Additionally, Microsoft says it’s pacing to sell more than 5 million units by the end of the year. This news comes just a week after Sony visualized sales figures for its Kinect competitor, PlayStation 3 Move.
When you consider that Kinect for Xbox 360 won’t even reach most of Asia until November 18 and Japan until November 20, the 1 million units in 10 days figure is even more impressive."
Source:  Mashable, 15th November 2010

Microsoft's Gaming & Devices division generated a profit of $382m in Q3 2010

"We are beginning to see the latest financial results come in from the various publicly traded game-related companies come in for the last fiscal quarter. Today Microsoft announced that its Entertainment and Devices division, which includes its Games For Windows and Microsoft Games Studios business, brought in $382 million in profits for the quarter that ended on September 30.
A lot of that money came from the sales success of Halo Reach, Microsoft's latest Xbox 360 game in the long running shooter series. However Microsoft, as we have been reporting for the last few months, has been beefing up its PC game portion of the division, announcing new PC exclusive titles like the upcoming Age of Empires Online, as well as an upcoming revamp for its Games For Windows PC game download business."
Source:  Big Download, 28th October 2010

Monday 15 November 2010

Levels of music streaming and music downloading are roughly equal in the US

"In the United States, music downloads and streams were nearly even in terms of popularity in August, according to NPD Group’s latest numbers, and are likely now in a dead heat. Downloads to Mac and Windows computers increased from 29 percent in March to 30 percent in August, said an NPD Group spokesman (who declined to be named because only NPD analysts can be quoted officially), while 29 percent of Americans streamed music in August, up from 25 percent in March. (In such studies, a one point difference is within the margin of error.)
These stats paint a clear picture.
Not only is music streaming growing faster than music downloading in the United States, but if the trend continues it will become the dominant computer music listening behavior in this country in a matter of months — and that’s before you take into account smartphone and television streaming.
The tipping point from downloading to streaming took place in France earlier this week, and these numbers indicate that we’re next."
Source:  Data from NPD Group, reported by Evolver,fm, 11th November 2010

Friday 12 November 2010

Call of Duty - Black Ops generated $360m in revenue in the first day

"The biggest ever Videogame franchise in history has officially got bigger with the latest announcement by Activision that Treyarch’s Call of Duty – Black Ops officially beat the record set by its previous installment (Modern Warfare 2) in one day sales in North America and Europe.
The record held by Modern Warfare 2 for a little under a year was $310 million; this has been superseded by Black Ops to the tune of $360 million. A whopping $50 million increase in sales. Equating this to actual copies sold, Black Ops has sold 5.6 million units versus Modern Warfare 2’s 4.7 million. “I have every confidence that Tuesday’s sales are just the first milestone in what will be a tremendous year for Call of Duty and for our company,” said Activision COO and CFO Thomas Tippl."
Source:  Tech n Gadgets, 12th November 2010

Thursday 11 November 2010

Worldwide smartphone sales grew by 96% Y-o-Y in Q3 2010



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"Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 417 million units in the third quarter of 2010, a 35 percent increase from the third quarter of 2009, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales grew 96 percent from the third quarter last year, and smartphones accounted for 19.3 percent of overall mobile phone sales in the third quarter of 2010.
“This is the third consecutive double-digit increase in sales year-on-year, indicating that consumer demand is healthy,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “This quarter saw Apple and Android drive record smartphone sales. Apple's share of the smartphone market surpassed Research In Motion (RIM) in North America to put it second behind Android while Android volumes also grew rapidly making it the No. 2 operating system worldwide.”"
Source:  Press Release from Gartner, 10th November 2010

What Women Want

A good presentation with lots of stats about women in Europe, by Laura Chaibi at Yahoo


Source:  Yahoo Europe, posted in November 2010

35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube per minute


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"Remember in March when we shared with you that more than 24 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute? Well, you continue to amaze us: you’ve increased the amount of video uploaded to YouTube to 35 hours per minute. That breaks out to 2,100 hours uploaded every 60 minutes, or 50,400 hours uploaded to YouTube every day. If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), 35 hours a minute is the equivalent of over 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week. Another way to think about it is: if three of the major US networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days."
Source:  YouTube blog, 10th November 2010

Wednesday 10 November 2010

There are over 175m cable TV subscribers in China

"Pang Jingjun, deputy director of Development Research Center at China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), announced on November 1 that the number of residential cable TV subscribers in China exceeded 175 mln households, accounting for one-third of residential cable TV subscribers worldwide. "
Source:  Marbridge Daily, 10th November 2010

Nearly a quarter of display ads seen in the US are on Facebook

"Nearly one of every four graphical, online display ads viewed in the United States in the third quarter was on Facebook's website, according to a new report by Web analytics firm comScore.
Facebook's 23.1 percent share of display ad impressions was up sharply from 17.7 percent in the second quarter, and more than double that of the No. 2 ranked company, Yahoo Inc, which had 11 percent share.
In fact, Facebook's website racked-up more ad impressions in the third quarter than the next four companies combined, which includes Yahoo, Microsoft Corp, News Corporation's Fox Interactive Media and Google Inc, according to comScore."
Source:  comScore data, reported by Reuters, 8th November 2010

Tuesday 9 November 2010

Fashion site Asos sells 40,000 branded and own-label products

"Asos now attracts nine million unique visitors a month, sells 40,000 branded and own-label products and claims to have 3.7 million registered users. In the six months to 30 September, overseas sales rocketed by 120 per cent to £49m, compensating for slightly less stratospheric growth in the UK."
Source:  The Independent, 9th November 2010

Music eCommerce site Topspin makes 75% of its revenues from physical products

"According to information shared with Digital Music News, a whopping 75 percent of Topspin revenues involve some sort of physical product.  "We're beyond the one-size fits all product world - thankfully," said Topspin CEO Ian Rogers, discussing the numbers at New Noise Santa Barbara.  "What we see is, 50 percent of what we sell is digital, and 50 percent of it contains something physical.  The 50 percent that contains something physical is 75 percent of revenues, or more."
Sounds astounding, except when you consider the value of higher-end, higher-priced stuff.  These premium goods carry great margins, and for artists with serious fans, it can all add up.  "You can definitely add a lot of money to any campaign by just adding some limited edition goods that are at a higher price point," Rogers continued."
Source:  Report in Digital Music News, 9th November 2010
[Note - presumably if a ticket is sold, and it's a physical ticket, then this counts as 'physical']

Piracy in Spain cost rights holders €2.5bn in the first half of 2010

"Piracy in Spain cost legal content rights owners 5.2 billion euros in the first half of 2010, more than triple the 1.56 billion euros in revenue earned by the digital content industry in the same period, according to a report released Wednesday.
According to Observation of Piracy and Consumption of Digital Content Habits study, conducted by IDC Research for the Madrid-based Coalition of Content Creators and Industries, the music sector was the hardest hit, with 97.8% of consumption derived from illegal downloads -- estimated at some 2.7 billion euros.
Some 77% of movie downloads, worth 1.87 billion euros, were done illegally, while video games same illegal downloads grow from 52.3% from the second half of 2009 to 60.7% in the first six months of 2010. The study concluded that piracy cost the gaming sector some 262 million euros."
Source:  Research by IDC, reported by The Hollywood Reporter, 3rd November 2010

Friday 5 November 2010

There are 2.7 million downloads a day from the Ovi store

"Content
There are 2.7 million downloads a day with an average of 2.6 apps downloaded per visit
About 90% of the daily traffic to Ovi Store converts to downloads
85% of the signed in visitors to Ovi Store are repeat visitors
Each active user is averaging 8.5 downloads per month
Active users in 190+ countries
Games continue to be #1 for paid downloads and apps continue to be #1 for free downloads
90% of mobile consumers now have Ovi Store in their local language
Publishers from more than 90 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store
Devices
More than 135 devices are supported, 80 are Symbian devices
6 of the top 10 downloading devices are touch devices: 5800 XpressMusic, N97, N97 mini, 5530 XpressMusic, 5230 Nuron, and X6 where available
Prominent Eseries devices included E63, E71 and E72
The 5130 XpressMusic and 2700 classic are the top downloading Series 40 devices
Markets
The most active countries in alphabetical order are: China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Turkey, UK and Vietnam
Over 80% of these consumers can purchase from Ovi Store using their local currency
In countries where mobile billing is available, more than 2/3 of customers choose this payment option
With support for 30 language variations, 90% of Ovi Store visitors are using their local language when available"
Source:  Forum Nokia, as of 28th October 2010

Thursday 4 November 2010

US House and Senate election winners generally had more fans than the losers

"With most of Election Night’s races already decided, the Facebook political team took a look at whether Facebook “likes” did help predict the 2010 House and Senate winners.
The Data
 More Fans Equals 74% Winning Percentage in Key House Races
Facebook tracked 98 of the most hotly contested House races, as decided by leading political observers, and 74 percent of the candidates with the most Facebook fans won their races:
· 69 candidates with the most Facebook fans won· 24 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 5 races are still too close to call
More Than 80% of Senate Wins Foreshadowed on Facebook
Just over 82 percent of the 34 Senate races that have been decided were won by the candidate with more Facebook fans:
· 28 candidates with the most Facebook fans won
· 6 candidates with the most Facebook fans lost
· 3 races are still too close to call
House Democrat Incumbents Lost on Facebook Before Losing on Election Day
So far, 46 House Democrat incumbents lost their seats yesterday. More than 78% of those incumbents had fewer Facebook fans than their challengers:
· 36 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had fewer fans then their Republican challenger
· 10 incumbent House Democrats who lost their seat had more fans than their Republican challenger"
Source:  Facebook, 3rd November 2011

4% of online Americans use location-sharing services like Foursquare

"In its first report on the use of “geosocial” or location-based services, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services.
[...]
Key findings include:
- 7% the adults who go online with their mobile phone use a location-based service.
- 8% of online adults ages 18-29 use location-based services, significantly more than online adults in any other age group.
- 10% of online Hispanics use these services – significantly more than online whites (3%) or online blacks (5%).
- 6% of online men use a location-based service such as Foursquare or Gowalla, compared with 3% of online women."
Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 4th November 2010

64% of bloggers describe themselves as "hobbyists"



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"Penn Schoen Berland conducted an Internet survey from September 21-October 8, 2010 among 7,205 bloggers around the world. The margin of error for the survey is +/- 1.2% at the 95% confidence level and larger for subgroups. The following audiences are included throughout this report:
All: Entire sample of bloggers
2010 Respondents: Entire sample of bloggers surveyed September 21-October 8, 2010
N=2,828 / MoE= +/- 1.8
Blogger Audiences
Hobbyists (64%)  N=4623 / MoE= +/- 1.4
Currently report no income from their blog
Part-Timers (13%)  N=972 / MoE= +/- 3.2
Receive compensation for their blogging, but do not consider it their full time job
Corporates (1%)  N=74 / MoE= +/-11.4
Blog full-time for company or organization
Self Employeds (21%)  N=1535 / MoE= +/- 2.5
Blog for their own company or organization"
Source:  Technorati's State of the Blogosphere Report 2010, October 2010

There is a correlation between women's searches in the UK for dating and for cosmetics



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Source:  Rising Trends in Online Dating (Jan-Jun 2010), The link between online dating and beauty products, Google UK, October 2010
Note:
"The indexed search volumes for top search terms in cosmetics (including terms such as “mac cosmetics,” “avon,” “make up tips”) have largely followed corresponding figures for queries related women seeking men (e.g. “single men in London”, “find boyfriend”)."

There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

"Mobile
There are more than 200 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products"

Source:  Official Facebook Statistics, retrieved 4th November 2010.
Earlier figures here (other figures on the Official stats, like total users, are unchanged)

Wednesday 3 November 2010

The demographics of Foursquare - gender split and by-state distribution

On 2nd November 2010 Foursquare visualised checkins at polling stations in the US.
I have taken these checkins - a total of 50,416, and the gender and by-state splits to show the overall US gender and by-state split.
In summary, nearly 60% of users are male, and nearly 50% live in just 6 states - California, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois & Texas
Note - This is clearly an extrapolation - but I believe that it's the closest we've come to seeing the real gender and geographical split of Foursquare.  It may also give an indication of how digitally advanced different states are.



Gender:
58% male, 42% female

Split by state:
California 16%

New York 13%
Pennsylvania 5%
Florida 5%
Illinois 5%
Texas 5%
Georgia 4%
Ohio 4%
Michigan 4%
Virginia 4%
Wisconsin 3%
New Jersey 3%
Minnesota 3%
North Carolina 3%
Arizona 2%
Indiana 2%
Tennessee 2%
Washington DC 1%
Connecticut 1%
Iowa 1%
South Carolina 1%
Washington 1%
Colorado 1%
Kansas 1%
Kentucky 1%
Alabama 1%
Missouri 1%
Louisiana 1%
Oklahoma 1%
Nevada 1%
Nebraska 1%
Utah 1%
Arkensas 1%
New Hampshire 0%
Rhode Island 0%
Idaho 0%
Delaware 0%
Maine 0%
New Mexico 0%
Mississippi 0%
Oregon 0%
South Dakota 0%
West Virginia 0%
Alaska 0%
Vermont 0%
North Dakota 0%
Wyoming 0%
Montana 0%
Source:  Data taken from the 'Elections' visualisation on Foursquare, 2nd November 2010, showing how many had checked in to vote in each state.
Note - To repeat - This is clearly an extrapolation - but I believe that it's the closest we've come to seeing the real gender and geographical split of Foursquare. It may also give an indication of how digitally advanced different states are.

43% of US Facebook users say they 'Like' or are fans of at least one brand on Facebook

"43% of the Facebook users surveyed said they Like, or are fans of, at least one brand on Facebook.
34% of Facebook users say they Like brands in order to stay informed about company activities.
33% say they Like brands to get updates on future products.
Among Facebook users who Like at least one brand, only 17% say they’re more likely to buy after Liking that brand on Facebook."
Source:  Research from ExactTarget and CoTweet, reported by Social Media Examiner, 29th October 2010

A combination of paid and organic search impressions leads to the greatest uplift in purchase intent

"Amongst its key findings, the study reveals that exposure to impressions of digital media boosts brand favorability. Specifically, paid search has the greatest impact on this metric, both in isolation and in combination with other digital media types. Alone, paid search impressions create the greatest lift (28%) overall. However, when combined with organic search impressions, the organic-paid search duo boosts this metric to 40 percent. Likewise, exposure to paid search impressions nets the greatest lift (35%) of individual assets for this metric in the retail vertical. Yet the paid and organic search combination creates a lift of 56 percent for the hotel sector.
The study also reveals that exposure to impressions of digital media drives Internet users' likelihood to purchase. Paid search impressions are particularly adept at influencing this behavior, whether they are used alone or in conjunction with other digital media. At the aggregate level, paid search generates a lift of 44 percent on its own; but within the retail vertical, it produces a 54 percent lift. However, combinations of two digital media types also play a role. Together, organic and paid search impressions yield the greatest lift (73%) in aggregate and in the hotel vertical (147%). But organic and display impressions create the most effective combination (64%) for this metric in the banking/financial services sector."
Source:  Research from iProspect and comScore reported in a press release from iProspect, 2nd November 2010

105,000 people have paid to access online content from The Times and Sunday Times

"More than 100,000 people have paid to go behind the Times and Sunday Times' new online paywalls but visits to their websites have fallen by about 87%.
Times Online was registering about 21 million unique users a month to its front page earlier this year but the figure fell to 2.7 million last month.
The papers said in addition 100,000 people had a joint subscription to read the newspapers in print and digitally.
Times editor James Harding said the papers were "hugely encouraged".
Publishers of the Times and Sunday Times have revealed for the first time how many people are paying to read their newspapers online or on mobiles. They said that figures stood at 105,000.
The subscription figures have been eagerly awaited by publishers and advertisers since the two papers went behind an online paywall four months ago.
The figure for unique users for their websites comprises two million for the Times and 700,000 for the Sunday Times.
[...]
The publishers now say the total paid audience so far is close to 200,000, allowing for duplications in subscriptions.
About 50,000 are paying a monthly subscription, either for the website editions or to read the papers on an iPad or Kindle. Many others are buying a £1 day pass.
The figures include subscribers to the print version of the papers who receive an online subscription as a result."
Source:  Figures revealed by News International, reported by BBC News, 2nd November 2010

Monday 1 November 2010

Twitter has 175m registered users

"In a New York Times profile on Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, the company revealed a few interesting stats showing the growth trajectory of the network. Twitter now has 175 million registered users, which is up from 145 million users in September. That means the startup added around 30 million users in just under two months. And Twitter has added 70 million users since April.
This is impressive growth considering that Twitter had a total of 58 million users in 2009 (and 503,000 users three years ago). That’s a 200 percent increase from 2009 to 2010 in terms of users. And the year isn’t over—it’s conceivable that at the rate Twitter is growing, the company could be ringing in the New Year with 200 million users. So what’s contributing to this massive growth?"
Source:  Article in the New York Times, reported by Techcrunch, 31st October 2010

Digital accounts for nearly 25% of all radio listening in the UK

"Hopes for digital radio switchover in the next five years suffered a blow today as the growth in popularity of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio went into reverse.
Digital accounted for 24.8% of all radio listening in the three months to 19 September, marginally up on the 24.6% share of listening in the previous three months, according to official Rajar figures published today.
But DAB radio, the likely broadcast replacement for analogue AM and FM in the digital-only age, saw its share of listening drop, to 15.3% from 15.8% in the second quarter of 2010.
Far from listeners switching off their analogue radio sets, the popularity of AM and FM continued to grow, with a 67.6% share, up from 67% in the previous quarter and 66.1% a year ago."
Source:  Rajar report for the quarter to September 2010, reported by The Guardian, 28th October 2010

15% of US cinema screens can show 3D films

"Katzenberg brought studios and exhibitors together to craft a cost- sharing solution to pay for digital 3-D-enabled projectors. Today 15% of screens in the U.S. can show 3D movies, with 500 more added every month."
Source:  Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks, reported by CTV, 31st October 2010

3D movies account for nearly 20% of US box office revenues so far in 2010

"The movie industry welcomes Katzenberg's evangelizing because it badly needs those extra revenues. DVD sales have shrunk 19% since 2006. 3D is beginning to slowly make up for that loss, constituting nearly 20% of the $8 billion in box office revenues so far this year, up from 11% in 2009, according to Screen Digest. The production cost of a 3D movie is 10% to 20% higher than that of a regular film. But it could pay off. Jackass 3 (in 3D) earned 40% more in its opening weekend than Jackass 2."
Source:  Jeffrey Katzenberg of Dreamworks, reported by CTV, 31st October 2010

Apple is the 4th largest mobile phone vendor



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"The worldwide mobile phone market grew 14.6% in the third quarter of 2010 (3Q10), the fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth, driven in part by the fast-growing converged mobile device category. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 340.5 million units in 3Q10 compared to 297.1 million units in the third quarter of 2009.
The growing popularity of converged mobile devices, or smartphones, with consumers and businesspersons is evidenced by the appearance of a second smartphone-only vendor in the top 5 ranking. Apple moved into the number 4 position worldwide in 3Q10, joining Research In Motion (RIM) as one of the world's largest mobile phone suppliers. RIM has spent three quarters on IDC's leaderboard. Apple and RIM also posted the highest-growth rates among the top 5 vendors last quarter.
"The entrance of Apple to the top 5 vendor ranking underscores the increased importance of smartphones to the overall market. Moreover, the mobile phone makers that are delivering popular smartphone models are among the fastest growing firms," said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Vendors that aren't developing a strong portfolio of smartphones will be challenged to maintain and grow market share in the future."
Apple, RIM, and the vendors producing Android-based smartphones have put noticeable pressure on Nokia, the overall market leader. "Nokia still leads all vendors by a significant margin for converged mobile devices and mobile phones as a whole," said Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team. "However, Nokia's grip on the traditional mobile phone market has been somewhat loosened, as multiple Chinese vendors have gained ground, especially within emerging markets. To bolster its overall competitiveness, Nokia has been focused on improving its smartphone offerings.""
Source:  Press release from IDC, 28th October 2010