Rock Band now features over 1,000 songs; overall approximately 60 million songs have been downloaded

"The overall Rock Band music game platform now features over 1,000 songs from 390 artists available across disc-based and downloadable sources, say publisher MTV Games and developer Harmonix.
Those tracks, both free and paid, have been downloaded some 60 million times by Rock Band players, making for an impressive average per-track download count of 60,000. (That number is likely higher for download-only tracks, since songs included with base game discs need not be downloaded.)
The milestones comes just over two years after the franchise was launched with the original Rock Band for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game, and series, later came to Wii and PlayStation 2."
Source: Data from MTV Games and Harmonix, reported by Gamasutra, 25th November 2009

Spotify has spent less than £5,000 in marketing costs in the past 3 years

"Despite having spent less than £5,000 marketing itself since its launch three years ago, Spotify is fast becoming a household name, pulling in the punters with an offer that looks too good to be true: all the online music anyone could want, for nothing except the bother of having to listen to an advert rather less frequently than on radio. And it's legal."
[Note - I'm assuming that they mean paid advertising. Spotify certainly employ people in marketing and PR functions - if these salaries and other fees were included then the figure would be well over £5,000. So let's assume that they mean paid advertising, which does not detract from the story.]
Source: Figure cited by The Observer, 29th November 2009

Approximately 15% of UK book purchases are made online

"Recent figures indicate that the share of book sales going to the high-street chains is in sharp decline, squeezed on one hand by those even narrower book choices in supermarkets themselves, and on the other by the ever-rising internet. In fact, the proportion of UK book retailing taken by online purchases now stands – at around 15 per cent – at a lower level than many observers might have predicted. Amazon has not yet flooded the marketplace."
Source: Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 27th November 2009

77% of Facebook fan pages have fewer than 1,000 fans

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"95% of pages have more than 10 fans
65% of pages have more than 100 fans
23% of pages have more than 1,000 fans
4% of pages have more than 10,000 fans
0.76% of pages have more than 100,000 fans
0.047% of pages have more than one million fans (297 in total)."
Source: Data from Sysomos, reported by Techcrunch, 28th November 2009

US newspaper advertising revenues fell by 28% Y-o-Y in Q3 2009, with the online element down 17%

"The economy may have rallied in the third quarter, but the newspaper industry did not, as total advertising revenues -- including print and online -- tumbled 28%, from roughly $10.1 billion in the third quarter of 2008 to about $6.4 billion this year. The third-quarter loss is on par with first and second-quarter declines of 28.3% and 29%, respectively.
As in previous quarters, losses were spread evenly across all the main newspaper advertising categories -- including national, down 29.8%, retail, down 24%, and classifieds, down 37.9%.
National advertising in particular reached a discouraging milestone in the third quarter, with total revenues falling below $1 billion (to $956 million). That's the first time since the third quarter of 1995.
[...]
Similar to previous quarters, newspaper print ad revenue declines were joined by online, which fell 17% from $750 million in the third quarter of 2008 to $623 million this year.
With the latest results, the newspaper industry's total print revenues have experienced year-over-year declines for 14 straight quarters, while online has fallen for six straight quarters."
Source: The Newspaper Publishers of America (NPA), reported by Mediapost, 17th November 2009

Data on the first 5 months of Nokia's Ovi Store

"2009 has sure gone by quickly and being mid-November, 2010 is rapidly approaching. For those of you who are mobile developers or are following the various mobile application stores available in market I thought I would give another update regarding Ovi Store and where we are since we launched about 5 months ago. The following stats are from 26 May through 31 October:
Available on over 100 different Nokia devices (60+ Symbian S60 devices)
Active users from over 180 countries
Developers from 65 countries are distributing content
8 countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.
Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia & UK
In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement
Redownload now available and search is much improved, more details (http://tinyurl.com/yf9tmbd)
Ovi Store will ship embedded on most new compatible Nokia devices including Symbian S60 and Series 40 from Q4 2009
On average, each registered user has downloaded at least 8 items from Ovi Store
In October, the number of content items downloaded was over 70% higher than in Sept."
Source: Bill Perry, Sr. Services Marketing Manager for Forum Nokia based in California, in a blog post, 17th November 2009

Google makes 97% of it's income from Advertising

Click to enlarge - see the bottom right hand corner

Source: Google Inc financial tables for quarter ended 30th June 2009

Last.fm gained a million extra subscribers in a week following integration with XBox Live

"CBS should be pleased with its choice to allow Microsoft to sync Xbox LIVE to Last.fm, as the partnership has already netted the streaming music service nearly a million new subscribers. Last.fm went live on Xbox last Tuesday, and both companies are already hyping the deal as a success in terms of the numbers. CBS says it broke a record for the number of new profiles created in a 24-hour period, and that Xbox LIVE users had already streamed more than 120 million minutes worth of music."
[That's 120 minutes per user...]
Source: PaidContent, 24th November 2009

2 million users logged into Facebook from XBox Live in the first week of operation

"Microsoft on Monday said that millions of Xbox Live members have used the new social-media features that the company pushed live a week ago.
In June, Microsoft announced it would begin offering Xbox Live users access to Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm. And while the manifestation of each of those services is scaled down on Xbox Live, the rollout has been one of the company's big pushes this fall for its hugely popular online system.
According to Microsoft spokesman David Dennis, the first-week figures show that at least 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook, and that half a million Last.fm accounts were created in the first 24 hours of availability. Dennis didn't address how many Xbox Live users have used the service's Twitter feature, except to say that there have been "tweets from nearly every market where we have Xbox Live."
So, based on the data Dennis provided, the Facebook integration with Xbox Live has had the most adoption. And while 2 million people logging into Facebook is far short of the 20 million total Xbox Live users, it is notable that fully one tenth of the service's users have tried the Facebook feature in just the first week."
Source: cnet, 23rd November 2009

Over 60% of mobile ad requests seen by AdMob in the UK come from either the iPhone or the iPod Touch

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Source: Page 14 of AdMob Mobile Metrics report, October 2009, released 23rd November 2009

Videos from Universal Music Group have more ads sold against them on YouTube than those of any other company

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Source: TubeMogul, reported by BusinessInsider, 20th November 2009

Torrent site mininova has seen over 10 billion downloads since 2005

"Mininova, the most visited BitTorrent indexer, broke an impressive record today. Since its inception, the site has served a dazzling 10 billion torrent downloads.
mininovaMininova, founded in January 2005, grew out to become one of the most successful torrent sites with millions of daily users.
The site has grown steadily over the years and continues to do so, despite a setback in court this summer. In fact, today the 10 billionth torrent file was downloaded from Mininova, an impressive achievement to say the least."
Source - TorrentFreak.com, 19th November 2009

Over two million people saw the video stream of the red carpet event for New Moon on MySpace

"MySpace just released their data and as it turns out, the stream garnered over 2 million uniques, and almost 3 million total viewers. [I think they mean views - Dan]
According to MySpace press materials, “It was a huge success breaking the record to become the highest amount of viewers to tune in to a Ustream red carpet live webcast. It also set the record as the farthest reaching webcast for Ustream with over two million uniques.”"
Source: MySpace, reported by Mashable, 17th November 2009

Australian web users spend over 25% of their time on Facebook

"The extent of Facebook's reach in Australia - it accounts for 29 per cent of all time spent online by Australians - has led to research group Nielsen defining the trend as "Facebook Time" and "Non Facebook Time".
"It's just phenomenal," said Nielsen Online's director of analytics, Mark Higginson. "Every time I run those numbers I have to double check. Australians are spending nearly a third of all their time browsing the internet on Facebook alone."
In October, Australian users spent 27.2 hours browsing online and 7.55 hours of the total was sucked up by Facebook. MySpace managed just 39 minutes and Twitter 17 minutes."
Source: Data from Nielsen, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, 20th November 2009

EA bought 2 year old social networking games company Playfish for $300 million

"The US video game publisher Electronic Arts has paid $275m (£170m) in cash, plus $25m in share options, for two-year old gaming company Playfish.
The deal could cost a further $100m if Playfish hits certain financial targets by December 2011.
Playfish is different from many rivals as it makes free games for social networking sites - such as Facebook and MySpace - and mobile phones.
Players typically will then start paying for extras as they get hooked.
Playfish has 60 million registered users for its virtual games, such as Pet Society and Restaurant City."
Source: BBC News, 9th November 2009

Modern Warfare 2 sells an estimated 7.2 million copies on the first day of release

"Early data is in and the confirmation that Modern Warfare 2 will become the fastest-selling game of all time isn't a big suprise in itself, but the margin with which it looks to take the record is astounding.
VGChartz preliminary day one figures puts the sales to date (including the midnight launches) at over 7 million copies worldwide across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Around 55% of sales are on Xbox 360, 33% on PS3 and the remaining 12% on PC. In terms of regional breakdowns, over 4.2 million units were sold in the Americas (3.7 million USA), 1.2 million in the UK and 350,000 each in France and Germany.
Based on the day one figures and the Tuesday release, week one figures should come in at close to ten million units which smashes the 5.92 million week one record set by Grand Theft Auto 4 last year and positions Modern Warfare 2 as the most successful game launch of all time.
In fact, even on a single format (Xbox 360), week one sales are projected to come in at around 5.5 million units - this alone is enough to be the fastest-seller of all time, even without the PS3 and PC versions"
Source: VGChartz, 11th November 2009

62% of UK illegal downloaders say that using Spotify has reduced the amount they illegally download

"Almost two thirds (62 per cent) of those who admit to illegally downloading, say using Spotify has encouraged them to reduce the amount they download illegally or kick the habit altogether.
The survey** from the leading price comparison website moneysupermarket.com on downloading and streaming also showed that one in eight Brits (12 per cent) admit to download illegally in the past six months."
Source: Press release from MoneySupermarket.com, 6th November 2009

Apple only sold 5,000 iPhones in the first 4 days on sale in China

"The iPhone didn't exactly roar out of the gates in China, only picking up 5,000 new subscribers in its first weekend, according to China Unicom.
China's number two carrier, China Unicom, says it's pleased with the launch of the iPhone, and it will add revenue for the company in Q4, Reuters reports.
Compared to the ususal rip roaring success we hear about iPhone launches, this sounds small. Apple Insider says Apple is expected to sell around 460,000 iPhones annually through Unicom."
Source: China Unicom, reported by Sillicon Alley Insider, 3rd November 2009

The Your Reekok app for the iPhone generates more direct sales for the company than its website

"The Your Reebok application on the iPhone delivers income in spades. Created by Inside Mobile and Agency Mobile, this neat app allows users to design their own trainers and then either order a pair or upload them for others to view and purchase. Launched earlier this year, the application now generates more direct sales for Reebok than its website. That's the kind of case study other marketers pay attention to."
Source: The Guardian, 9th November 2009

Ebay's iPhone app has generated over $400m in sales

"Since $400 million was generated in business since the eBay application’s launch, Mr. Donahoe said that devices like this one and others like it are going to impact his company.
Last week someone bought a $350,000 Lamborghini on the iPhone. Also, someone bought a $150,000 boat from their iPhone"
Source: MobileMarketer, 24th September 2009

Barack Obama is the most listed twitter user

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Source: BloggersBlog, retrieved 6th November 2009

The Pizza Hut iPhone app generated more than $1m in sales in 3 months

"After being live in the iTunes App Store for just three months, the Pizza Hut App for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch has garnered more than one million dollars in sales. As the featured icon in the iTunes Lifestyle Category, the App is a proven option for customers seeking an innovative way to order their pizza, pasta, and wings from Pizza Hut."
Source: Pizza Hut press release, 28th December 2009

The Foo Fighters Facebook & iPhone live show delivered 440,000 live streams

"The Foo Fighters’ live show on Friday night came with little fanfare outside of the band’s core fanbase, but it delivered 2 hours and 45 minutes of greatest hits to more than 150,000 viewers around the world. The video drew 440,000 total live streams, with a max of 20,000 at any one time.
Airing on Livestream (both web and iPhone) and Facebook and produced and powered by Livestream out of the band’s private Los Angeles studio, the show was for once not a broadcast of a pre-existing concert. And while it played, the band responded to Facebook comments and took song requests from users."
Source: NewTeeVee, 2nd November 2009
Related - U2's YouTube concert delivered nearly 10m live streams

Only 20% of iPhone Apps are actively used

"Today the App Store has passed the 100k apps available on the App Store (sept was officially announced 85k). This is a great news and the pace keeps growing.
But there is a bad news. Very few apps are enjoying the ride.
We have found out that actually 20k apps are actually used (meaning installed and kept on people's iPhone). This number may grow with our user base, but it is a clear indicator that only 20% of all apps are actually raising interest.
The second number which is more dramatic is that there is a very very very long tail of apps: The graph below gives you an indication of the rank of each app we scan (based on the number of installation) and the % of users that own them.

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A very little number of apps makes it above 50% of iphone owners (easy to guess which one: facebook, shazam,...) it goes down VERY fast. The app rank 1000 is owned by less than 2% of the iPhone owners (1.76%) and it goes down very fast also."
Source: Blog post by AppsFire, 27th October 2009

Operating income for News Corp's newspapers division fell by 81% in the year to September 2009

"The Newspapers and Information Services segment reported first quarter operating income of $25 million, a decrease of $109 million compared with the same period a year ago. The decline was driven by lower advertising revenues, partially offset by lower operating expenses.
The U.K. newspaper group reported lower first quarter operating income contributions compared to the year ago quarter due to a 15% reduction in advertising revenues and a 6% decline in circulation revenues in local currency terms.
The Australian newspaper group reported lower first quarter operating income versus a strong first quarter of fiscal 2009, primarily due to a 17% decline in local currency advertising revenues, reflecting reduced classified, national and real estate advertising. Circulation revenues were in line with the prior year quarter. The reduced revenue contribution was partially offset by lower operating expenses.
Dow Jones’ first quarter operating results declined from the same period a year ago, due to lower advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal and lower information services revenue. These declines were partially offset by reduced operating expenses and increased circulation revenues which were driven by price increases at The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal now has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the U.S."
Source: Page 4 of News Corporation Earnings Release, 4th November 2009

People who illegally download music spend more on music than people who don't

"People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.
[...]
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 16- to 50-year-olds with internet access, found that one in 10 people admit to downloading music illegally."
Surce: Poll conducted in the UK by Ipsos Mori, commissioned by Demos, reported by The Independent, 1st November 2009

There are an estimated 4 million 'Jailbroken' iPhones in circulation

"It’s been months since we introduced jailbroken detection to our library, and we’ve begun to get a better understanding of the jailbroken ecosystem, which has remained reasonably steady. To date, Pinch Analytics has received data from approximately 4.0 million jailbroken devices. About 38%, or around a million and a half of those, have used a pirated application. This estimate is low – application pirates take steps to avoid detection – but it’s worth pointing out that an individual who jailbreaks their phone is not necessarily an individual that steals applications."
Source: Pinch Analytics, 12th October 2009

1.27 billion people (31% of all mobile users) access the web through mobile devices

"Then I found finally the first analyst to give an update for 2009 for mobile web/mobile internet/mobile browsing usage. Note that this is not "the real internet" on a phone, this is any kind of browsing use, both the "real internet" like say on an iPhone or email on a Blackberry; as well as the "mobile internet" ie WAP usage of what is often operator/carrier portals. Yet, if you accss Google on a phone, regardless of whether via web in the traditional HTML and WWW basis, or via WAP, it is still a browser-based service. Same for Ebay or Yahoo or Twitter or Facebook. Any browser based access on a phone, that is "equivalent" to accessing that same internet service and its (usually mobile-optimimized) mobile site.
So Yankee Group reports that we now have 31% of all mobile phone owners using the mobile web, If you feel that it cannot be, that you don't see that many users around you in your world, remember these are global numbers, so they include of course all those countries where mobile web use is far greater than PC based internet use, such as South Africa or Japan or India etc. And yes, previously it was me and my consultancy saying so, now we have a major analyst house, Yankee Group, giving us the number.
31%? how many users is that worldwide? at the start of the year we had 4.1 billion mobile phone subscriptions on the planet, so at the start of 2009, we had reached the level of 1.27 billion mobile browsing users."
Source: Yankee Group, reported by Tomi Ahonen, 30th October 2009

Total annual revenues generated by SMS now exceed $100 billion

"We have now heard from Portio Research, who do report that SMS total global user base has passed 3 billion users. Portion also reports on the total revenues earned by SMS, and yes, that number has now officially passed 100 billion dollars. Yes, as we told you here before, as of now, the service that is only 16 years old, has grown to such a giant, it is as big as the global music industry, plus the total worldwide movie industry, and the total worldwide videogaming industry - added together. That is 100 billlion dollars. Or to put it another way, its bigger than global radio, or bigger than worldwide book publishing,.. Not bad for a messaging platform that allows only 160 characters per message..."
Source: Portio Research, reported by Tomi Ahonen, 30th October 2009

Facebook accounts for 6% of all US internet visits (Hitwise data)

(& twitter only 0.14%)

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Source: Bill Tancer of Hitwise, writing in his blog, 29th Ocober 2009