63m console and pc games were bought in the UK in 2010

"Last year, 2010, was another strong year for the UK video games and interactive entertainment industry, with annual sales figures of £1.53bn (entertainment software, pc & console games).
Total sales of console videogame software amounted to £1.45bn, with growth in 2 formats, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3. The total revenue for console hardware sales amounted to £800m.
In terms of revenue the hardware market was headed by Microsoft’s Xbox 360 generating £232m, closely followed by Sony’s PS3 with revenue of £229m. Combined hardware units for these 2 platforms was 2.3m, the same as the 52 comparable weeks of 2009.
In terms of revenue the software market paints a similar picture with Xbox 360 generating £538m and PS3 at No2 with £414m. In terms of units sold Xbox 360 is No1 with 18.2m and PS3 is No2 with 13.8m.
Overall, in 2010 UK consumers bought a total of 63 million console & pc videogames – which works out at more than one per person in the UK."
Source:  Press release from UKIE (The Association for United Kingdom Interactive Entertainment), 4th January 2011

Mobile web users tend to visit traditional sites rather than mobile-specific sites

"According to GfK, mobile internet traffic begins to grow rapidly each morning about 5am, and reaches a peak at 4:30pm. “The usage differs considerably during the day and sometimes even within the same hour. For example, 7.45am can have up to 30-40% more traffic than 7.15am on the same day.”
GfK also revealed several other interesting bits of information about the browsing habits of these 200,000 consumers, including:
- the average smartphone user makes up to 24 web sites visits per day
- a vast majority of the sites visited are to traditional websites and not mobile specific sites
- the Top 50 websites constitute only about 40% of all visits
One site which stood out because of its popularity is Facebook. In every country that GfK measured, they reported that the popularity of Facebook is “consistently remarkable”. In fact, they identified a identify a group of mobile users where Facebook is almost the exclusive site visited."

Source:  MobiAdNews, 29th January 2011

Methodology:

"GfK analyzed the mobile activity of over 200,000 mobile internet consumers in three European countries (note - it doesn't say which 3) using GfK’s unique ‘Network Intelligence Solution’ (GfK NIS). This new research tool analyzes a mobile operator’s IP traffic to determine the mobile internet browsing behaviour of large numbers of individuals.

Also, the NIS tool measures all websites visited using mobile internet regardless of the device; mobile phones, Smartphones, PC tablets and 3G Cards are all monitored."

Netflix accounts for more than 20% of downstream internet traffic during peak times in the US

"Netflix's roughly 16 million subscribers [update - now 20m] can access streaming content from a variety of devices - XBox 360, iPads, laptops (and that's just in my household). And that adds up to a substantial increase in demand. A recent study has found that Netflix makes up more than 20% of downstream Internet traffic during peak times in the U.S."
Source:  ReadWriteWeb, 21st October 2010

Netflix has more than 20m members in the US

"With more than 20 million members in the United States and Canada, Netflix, Inc. [Nasdaq: NFLX] is the world’s leading Internet subscription service for enjoying movies and TV shows. For $7.99 a month, Netflix members can instantly watch unlimited movies and TV episodes streamed over the Internet to PCs, Macs and TVs. Among the large and expanding base of devices streaming from Netflix are Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PS3 consoles; an array of Blu-ray disc players, Internet-connected TVs, home theater systems, digital video recorders and Internet video players; Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, as well as Apple TV and Google TV. In all, more than 200 devices that stream from Netflix are available in the U.S. and a growing number are available in Canada."
Source:  Netflix press information, retrieved 31st January 2011

Amazon.com sells more Kindle books than paperback books

""Thanks to our customers, we achieved two big milestones," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "We had our first $10 billion quarter, and after selling millions of third-generation Kindles with the new Pearl e-ink display during the quarter, Kindle books have now overtaken paperback books as the most popular format on Amazon.com. Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected - and it's on top of continued growth in paperback sales.""

Source:  Amazon press release, 27th January 2011

Twitter made an estimated $45m in ad revenue in 2010

"Twitter could more than triple its ad revenue this year but will still trail far behind Facebook, a new report claims.
Market research firm eMarketer predicted today that Twitter will generate about $150 million in advertising revenue this year, up from the $45 million it made last year. The vast majority of this year's revenue--$140 million--will come from inside the U.S., the firm said. eMarketer expects Twitter ad revenue to reach $250 million next year."

Source:  eMarketer estimates, reported by Cnet, 24th January 2011

American consumers made a saving of over $17m in December 2010 as a result of using online coupons

"Online Savings in November / December
November Consumer savings* $15.1 million
November Average Discount 27%
December Consumer savings* $17.1 million
December Average Discount 26.8%
*Based on user submitted average savings.
[...]
November Online Coupon Sales

Sales generated through RetailMeNot.com in November Approx. $56 million
Year Over Year Change 27% ($43.8 million in Nov. 2009)
Top Online Coupon $5 off $50 at Target.com
Top Printable Coupon $5 off any purchase of $20 or more for breakfast at IHOP
December Online Coupon Sales
Sales generated through RetailMeNot.com in December Approx. $63 million
Year Over Year Change 26% ($50.2 million in Dec. 2009)
Top Online Coupon $20 Off Entire Purchase Online at Bath and Body Works
Top Printable Coupon Additional 30% OFF Already Reduced Prices at Coach Factory Store"

Source:  RetailMeNot, Janaury 2010

Note - I have no idea how comprehensive this study is.  

Click through on the link to see more coupon-related stats

The European micropayments market was worth an estimated €6bn in 2010

"Digital media distributors are seeking new ways to monetise their content offerings. The growth in penetration of high-speed fixed and mobile internet has created new distribution channels and an opportunity for content distributors to sell to new, larger audiences to offset falling advertising revenues. For the majority of content distributors, subscription-based business models remain the most appealing.  However, not all types of consumers are willing to enter into such regular financial commitments and are therefore only monetisable through individual transactions of small value. These transactions, or ‘micropayments’, are typically of €5.00 or under (equivalent to approximately 4.50 GBP (£) and 6.50 USD ($) in value).
Value Partners estimates the European micropayments market is currently worth €6bn, and is set to grow to over €15bn by 2015. This corresponds to a 15% compounded annual growth rate over the next four years; a rate that is unique to micropayments and unparalleled in most other industries, channels, or payment types."
Source:  Value Partners, Capturing the Micropayments Opportunity, January 2011

Sky has 3.5m HD TV subscribers in the UK

"Digital TV broadcaster Sky has ten million customers following a "strong" first half of its 2010-11 financial year, with high-definition (HD) TV one of the areas to experience growth.
Some 3.5 million people were signed up to the company's HD TV package at the end of December 2010, with growth over the preceding three months up 68 per cent on the same period in 2009.
In total, Sky attracted a net amount of 140,000 new customers over the quarter, while the soon-to-launch Sky Atlantic HD could provide a further boost to subscriptions."

Source:  Cable, 27th January 2011

The Asia Pacific region account for 70% of the world's virtual goods sales, down from 81% in 2007

"In 2007, the Asia/Pacific region accounted for more than 81% of the total worldwide virtual goods revenue. In 2010, North and South America regions accounted for nearly 20% of the revenue, with Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) accounting for 10%. The remaining 70% of worldwide virtual goods revenue remains in the Asia/Pacific region, says In-Stat (www.in-stat.com)."

Source:  Press release from InStat, 25th January 2011

Foursquare stats for 2010

Including:
3400% growth in 2010
318,876,305 checkins in 2010
Biggest event - Rally to Restore Sanity, with over 30,000 checkins
See the visualisation here
Source:  Foursquare, January 2011
Also - Foursquare now has more than 6m users

Facebook took an estimated $1.86bn in advertising revenue in 2010

"Facebook has long been a buzzword in discussions of new business models and the growth of new media, but in the wake of news that it is to float the business model it is coming under greater analysis. Some new advertising figures and user analysis provides more food for thought.
The social network now has more than 650 million global users and, according to eMarketer, it took $1.86 billion in advertising during 2010. That's an increase of 151% on 2009's figure of $740m. Most of the 2010 total, some $1.21bn, was earned within the US, which probably comes as no surprise.
What's more of a surprise is that 60% of 2010's ad revenue, some $1.12bn, came from smaller companies which used self-serve tools rather than dealing through media agencies. Major marketers such as Coke, Proctor & Gamble and Match.com generated $740m for Facebook."

Source:  Estimates from eMarketer, reported by Daily Finance, 24th January 2011

The BBC iPlayer received 145m requests for programmes in December 2010

Click to enlarge

Source:  BBC iPlayer Monthly Performance Pack, December 2010

10 billion apps have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store

"Apple® today announced that more than 10 billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store℠ by the more than 160 million iPhone®, iPod touch® and iPad™ users worldwide. The 10 billionth app downloaded, Paper Glider, was purchased by Gail Davis of Orpington, Kent, UK. As the winner of the App Store Countdown to 10 Billion Apps, Gail Davis will receive a $10,000 iTunes® Gift Card.
“With more than 10 billion apps downloaded in just two and a half years—a staggering seven billion apps in the last year alone—the App Store has surpassed our wildest dreams,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The App Store has revolutionized how software is created, distributed, discovered and sold. While others try to copy the App Store, it continues to offer developers and customers the most innovative experience on the planet.”
The revolutionary App Store offers more than 350,000 apps to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users in 90 countries around the world, with more than 60,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from an incredible range of apps in 20 categories, including games, business, news, sports, health, reference and travel.."

Source:  Apple press release, 22nd January 2011

Social music game MXP4 has over 1 million active users

"MXP4, the first social music gaming studio, today announced that over 30 major artists are using MXP4’s first social music game for Facebook to engage fans, encourage viral distribution and increase purchases. Artists featuring MXP4’s Pump It app on their Facebook pages include Enrique Iglesias, David Guetta, Cheryl Cole, Tiesto, Nelly Furtado, Lloyd Banks, Adam Lambert, UnderOath, Duran Duran, Neon Trees, Ingrid Michaelson, 10 Years, Scorpions, iSquare, Tonic and more. In addition, Pump It exceeded one million active users in its first month with 40% sharing and competing against Facebook friends."

Source:  MXP4 blog, 20th January 2011

The Chinese eCommerce market was worth over RMB 4.5 trillion ($685 billion) in 2010

"The China B2B Research Center of e-commerce site Netsun Toocle (002095.SZ) has released its 2010 China E-Commerce Market Statistical Report, revealing that as of December 2010, China's e-commerce market value exceeded RMB 4.5 trln, up 22% YoY. B2B online transaction volume reached RMB 3.8 trln for 2010, up 15.8% YoY, while B2C/C2C transaction volume rose 97.3% YoY to reach RMB 513.1 bln.
The number of B2B e-commerce companies in China rose 21.3% YoY in 2010 to reach 9,200, with combined revenues up 35% YoY to reach RMB 9.55 bln. Alibaba held the largest market share with 63.5%, followed by Hong Kong-based Global Sources (Nasdaq: GSOL) with 5.3%, Made-in-China.com with 3.4%, Netsun Toocle with 2.9%, and HC International's (8292.HK) HC360 with 2.5%.
In 2010 the sector raised USD 550 mln in capital from 42 investors, including 35 VCs, as well as two IPOs that raised a combined USD 389 mln and five mergers.
China had 15,800 B2C/C2C firms in 2010, up 58.6% YoY, with the number expected to exceed 20,000 in 2011. Market share among China's C2C e-commerce platforms broke down as follows: Taobao, 85.4%; Tencent's (0700.HK) Paipai with 11%; Tom Eachnet with 3.1%; and Baidu-Rakuten, a B2C e-commerce joint venture between Chinese internet company Baidu (Nasdaq: BIDU) and Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten, with 0.4% of the market."
Source:  Marbridge Daily, 21st January 2011
Note - I have assumed that 1 trillion = 1,000 billion (i.e. trillion has 12 zeroes), although in some countries trillion has 18 zeroes
Currency converted on Xe.com on 24th January 2011 - RMB 1 = USD 0.1519

YouTube 's revenues more than doubled in 2010

"Most of Google’s earnings call was overshadowed by the news of CEO Eric Schmidt’s imminent departure — so much so that online video site YouTube didn’t come up during the Q&A session. And while Google typically doesn’t break out financials for the online video site, CFO Patrick Pichette snuck in a little tidbit of information about YouTube at the very end of the call, saying that the unit’s revenue had more than doubled during 2010."

Source:  GigaOM, 20th January 2011

Google's paid clicks increased by 18% Y-o-Y in Q4 2010

"Paid Clicks – Aggregate paid clicks, which include clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 18% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 11% over the third quarter of 2010.
Cost-Per-Click – Average cost-per-click, which includes clicks related to ads served on Google sites and the sites of our AdSense partners, increased approximately 5% over the fourth quarter of 2009 and increased approximately 4% over the third quarter of 2010.
TAC - Traffic Acquisition Costs, the portion of revenues shared with Google's partners, increased to $2.07 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to TAC of $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009. TAC as a percentage of advertising revenues was 25% in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to 27% in the fourth quarter of 2009.
The majority of TAC is related to amounts ultimately paid to our AdSense partners, which totaled $1.74 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010. TAC also includes amounts ultimately paid to certain distribution partners and others who direct traffic to our website, which totaled $333 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Other Cost of Revenues - Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, content acquisition costs as well as credit card processing charges, increased to $877 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2010, compared to $688 million, or 10% of revenues, in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Operating Expenses - Operating expenses, other than cost of revenues, were $2.51 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, or 30% of revenues, compared to $1.78 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, or 27% of revenues."

Source:  Google's Earnings Statement for Q4 2010, 20th January 2011

8% of German mobile internet users visited Amazon on their mobiles in December 2010

Click to enlarge

"We hypothesized that Amazon usage would increase in the month of December and the months leading up to it. In 2010, usage of Amazon went up dramatically in March and continued to stay at that level.
We saw that Amazon usage grew coinciding with the launch of Opera Mini for the Android platform and the iPhone shortly after. Another possibility is that Amazon itself may have become more mobile-friendly. Improved mobile platforms and sites that more strongly consider multiple screen sizes have helped users to further embrace mobile shopping.
In 2010 overall, Amazon usage increased almost every month and was highest in the October to December period. Usage in the United States and Germany grew particularly quickly. For Germany, the number of unique users visiting Amazon.com more than doubled from January 2010 to December 2010, from 3 percent to over 8 percent."
Source:  Opera's State of the Mobile Web report, December 2010, published 20th January 2011
Note:  Based on mobile users who use Opera's mobile browser

YouTube now gets more than 200m views a day on mobile

Click to enlarge

"We also have a new milestone to share - YouTube now exceeds 200 million views a day on mobile, a 3x increase in 2010."
Source:  YouTube blog, 12th January 2011

The Chinese paid search market increased by 67% year on year in Q4 2010

"According to iResearch (in Chinese) the Chinese online search market reached RMB3.29 billion (US$499.4 million) in Q4 2010. The revenues represent a 66.8% year-over-year (YoY) increase and a 5.9% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) increase.
[...]
iResearch also reported that search advertising accounted for 31% of total advertising spending in Q4. Its share is basically unchanged QoQ but up almost 11.5% YoY."
Source:  Data from iResearch, reported by the Digital East Asia blog, 17th January 2011

There are 457m people online in China - CNNIC data

"The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued its 26th report on the state of development of China's internet today, showing that as of December 2010, the number of Chinese internet users had reached 457 mln, an increase of 73.3 mln from the end of 2009; Internet penetration was at 34.3%, an increase of 5.4 percentage points from 2009.
Total broadband Internet users reached 450 mln, with penetration among fixed-line internet users reaching 98.3%.
China's mobile internet users numbered 303 mln, adding 69.3 mln since the end of 2009. Mobile internet users accounted for 66.2% of total internet users, up from 60.8% at the end of 2009.
The number of rural internet users reached 125 mln, accounting for 27.3% of total users, an increase of 16.9% YoY.
The proportion of internet users who chose to log on at home remained higher than any other location at 89.2%. 35.7%, 33.7% and 23.2% chose to access the internet at internet cafés, work and school, respectively. 16.1% accessed the internet from public places.
78.4% of Internet users used desktop computers to access the internet, while 66.2% used mobile phones and 45.7% logged in using notebooks.
Chinese internet users, on average, spent 18.3 hours per week online."

Source:  Data from the CNNIC, reported by Marbridge Daily, 19th January 2011

Facebook demographics January 2011, taken from the ad platform

Facebook Demographics 2011

View more presentations from Amodiovalerio Verde.

Source: Compiled by Amodiovalerio Verdi, from Facebook's ad platform, 15th January 2011

Online fashion retailer ASOS has 4.9m registered users

"Established in June 2000 and admitted to AIM in October 2001, ASOS.com is the UK's largest independent online fashion and beauty retailer and offers over 40,000 branded and own label product lines across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, jewellery and beauty with approximately 1,500 new product lines being introduced each week.
Aimed primarily at fashion forward 16-34 year olds, ASOS.com attracts over 11 million unique visitors a month and as at 31 December 2010 had 4.9 million registered users and 2.7 million active customers (defined as having shopped in the last 12 months)."

Source:  RNS announcement from ASOS (see the Background Note), 19th January 2011

The all-time top iPhone and iPad apps

"All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps
Doodle Jump
Tap Tap Revenge 3
Pocket God
Angry Birds
Tap Tap Revenge 2.6
Bejeweled 2 + Blitz
Traffic Rush
Tap Tap Revenge Classic
AppBox Pro Alarm
Flight Control

All-Time Top Free iPhone Apps
Facebook
Pandora
Google Mobile App
Shazam
Movies by Flixster
The Weather Channel
Google Earth
Bump
Skype
Paper Toss

All-Time Top Paid iPad Apps
SoundHound
StickWars
FlightTrack
Backbreaker Football
Calorie Tracker
BlocksClassic
iFart Mobile
GoodReader for iPad
Cro-Mag Rally
Ambiance

All-Time Top Free iPad Apps
Pandora
Google Mobile App
Movies by Flixster
Google Earth
Yelp
Fandango Movies
Remote
iBooks
Bible
Solitaire"

Source:  iTunes data, reported by Techcrunch, 19th January 2011

Next Generation Media Quarterly - January 2011

I've just posted my new quarterly presentation to Slideshare (it seems to get a little more delayed each time...) so please have a look at what is effectively a summary of this blog and my 'examples' blog for October - December 2010.

Next Generation Media Quarterly January 2011

View more presentations from Dan Calladine.

Apple sold 16.2m iPhones and 7.3m iPads in Q4 2010

"Apple sold 4.13 million Macs during the quarter, a 23 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 16.24 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 86 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 19.45 million iPods during the quarter, representing a seven percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 7.33 million iPads during the quarter."
Source:  Apple press release, 18th January 2011
Note:  Apple refer to this as their Fiscal first quarter, 2011, and it is the 3 months to 25th December 2010.
Earlier:  Apple sold 14.1m iPhones in Q3 2010

The US Media Factsheet

Click to enlarge

"Fast Facts:
Average Number of TVs per U.S. Household: 2.5
Percentage of Americans with 4 or more TVs: 31%
Number of Mobile Phone Users (13+): 228M
Percentage of U.S. Mobile Subscribers with Smartphones: 31%
Number of mobile phone web users: 83.2M"

Source:  Nielsen blog, 5th January 2011

The most profitable films of 2010

Source:  The Numbers, 14th January 2011
Notes on methodology:
"In making this calculation, we took the production budget, domestic and international box office and domestic DVD sales for each movie released during the year and calculated a rough total gross profit for the film. There's just one chart this week, but we think you'll find it interesting.
To compare the profitability of this year's movies, we took the domestic and international box office for each movie and the domestic DVD sales to calculate a rough estimate of the revenue earned by the studio, once theater and retail profits are accounted for. Specifically, we took half the worldwide box office and added 1.5 times the domestic DVD sales (to account for the combination of domestic and international DVD and Blu-ray sales and rentals). We then subtracted 1.5 times the movie's production budget (the extra 50% being a rough estimate of the marketing costs of the film).
It's worth stressing that this is only a rough estimate of the profitability of each film. So don't treat the numbers below as meaning (for example) that Toy Story 3 earned nearly $500 million in profit. However, it's pretty clear that Toy Story 3 and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse are the two top earning movies of 2010.
One final note: this chart is updated in real time as we get numbers from the studios and track DVD sales. The movies not yet on DVD will climb this chart further in the months to come. In particular, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I might yet have a shot at number one."

Publishers using Google's Ad Exchange generated an average of 188% more revenue compared to those using indirect sales

"To see how what kind of effect the growth of the Exchange was having on its participants, we undertook an analysis that quantified the Exchange’s impact on participating publishers’ bottom lines. Today, we’re publishing a white paper that shows that when publishers make ad space available in the Ad Exchange, and the Exchange wins the auction, publishers generate, on average, 188% more revenue compared with indirect sales to ad networks and other third-party buyers. Over millions of impressions, this can make a huge difference to publishers’ advertising revenues, which is great for the web as a whole.
This 188% increase is a result of two key trends that we’re seeing:
Demand for publishers’ inventory is increasing as more AdWords and Google Display Network advertisers start running display campaigns, get great results and invest further. For example, display advertising spend among Google’s largest 1,000 advertisers increased 75% in the past year. Agency trading desks and new third-party technology providers are also running more display ads through the Ad Exchange. And real-time bidding—which enables advertisers to tailor their bids and ads in real time to buy the ad space they value the most—continues to be a major draw, now accounting for 56% of buyers’ spend.
We’re seeing publishers increasingly leverage the Ad Exchange’s “dynamic allocation” to sell their inventory. Via dynamic allocation, the Exchange compares—in real time—the value of the highest-paying ad in the Ad Exchange with any ads from other sources (such as ad network deals) and chooses the highest paying one. The Ad Exchange only serves ads when it can offer a higher price for ad space. Of course, publishers are in complete control of which networks they allow to bid, what ads can appear on their sites and which ad space they make available."
Source:  Google blog, 16th January 2011

Pandora has 75m users

"First, a heartfelt thanks to all of you for continuing to be such engaged listeners and such wonderful evangelists. In 2010 we doubled our audience to over 75 million people! And that was mostly thanks to continued word of mouth. For that we are deeply appreciative.
As always, interacting with listeners continues to be our greatest joy, and greatest source of feedback. You now send us over 25,000 emails every month. What an incredible fountain of information, constructive feedback, and validation that continues to be... and those thumbs! In 2010 alone, you thumbed over 3 billion songs (mostly thumbs-up... phew!)."
Source:  Tim Westergren of Pandora, in the Pandora blog, 12th January 2011

The top 10 reasons people 'Like' or 'Follow' brands on Facebook

"Here are the Top 10 Motivations for Consumers to “Like” and Follow a Brand and on Facebook:
1. 40% want to receive discounts and promotions
2. 37% want to show support for the brand/company to thers
3. 36% hope (want) to get free samples, a coupon (a.k.a. freebies)
4. 34% want to stay informed about the activities of the company
5. 33% want to get updates on future products
6. 30% want to get updates and information on future sales
7. 27% like to get fun and entertainment out of it
8. 25% want to get access to exclusive content
9. 22% mentioned they were referred by someone to follow this brand/company
10. 21% want just to learn more about the company"

Source:  Research from Co-Tweet and ExactTarget, reported by Social Media Today, 11th January 2011

Global Web Index - Social Entertainment

Welcome to Social Entertainment - Annual Report 2011

View more presentations from Tom Smith.

Source:  GlobalWebIndex, 12th January 2011

Only 60% of American XBox Live members spend their time on the console playing games

"Speaking to attendees of BMO Capital Markets Digital Entertainment Conference in New York, Dennis Durkin, corporate vice president and chief operating and financial officer of Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business, said that 40 percent of Xbox Live members in the U.S. are spending their time on the console on non-gaming activities. That includes things like watching streaming movies on Netflix, listening to music content on the Zune and Last.fm apps, and eyeballing friends on Twitter and Facebook.
"What we found is the core gamer might be the person who brought the console into the house, but as you widen the choices of content, it broadens what people can do with the system," Durkin said.
According to Durkin, those same members are also spending an average of three hours online, per day."
Source:  ZDNet, 12th November 2010

Almost three times as many people watch music videos online as legally download music

"The most popular form of music consumption polled by Nielsen was the “watch” habit: 57% have watched music videos on computers in the last three months. Sites like YouTube are a mainstream channel. Just behind “watch” in global popularity comes the traditional area of concern of the music industry - consumers downloading a song from the internet without paying for it. Many of the online consumers who have been surveyed declare having undertaken this activity: nearly 50% of the global online population in the last three months, although this number varies greatly from region to region: being highest in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Middle East / Africa, and far less in Europe and the US.
However, it is key to keep in mind that these figures do not reflect the volume of downloads nor that this activity is necessarily illegal, as free legal digital downloads can be obtained.
Other learnings from our survey show the growing importance of IT and telecom devices, whether used for music streaming on a computer (26%), streaming music on a mobile phone (21%), watching music video on mobile phones (23%) and downloading or using music apps (20%)."
Source:  Digital music consumption and digital music access, Nielsen Music, for Midem, 12th January 2011

Methodology:  "This analysis is based on a survey conducted by Nielsen (survey of 26,644 online consumers in 53 markets across the globe during September 2010). The broad set of questions covered  music purchasing and listening habits."

Internet 2010 in numbers

Extract:
"Social media
152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010
100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010
175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010
7.7 million – People following @ladygaga (Lady Gaga, Twitter’s most followed user).
600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
250 million – New people on Facebook in 2010.
30 billion – Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month.
70% – Share of Facebook’s user base located outside the United States.
20 million – The number of Facebook apps installed each day."
Source:  Various, collated by Royal Pingdom, 12th January 2011
Note - lots more stats on photos, browsers, video and more on the Pingdom site

Facebook paid $8.5m to buy the url fb.com

"How much money did Facebook fork over when it acquired Fb.com last year? A cool $8.5 million, more than 42 times the amount the company originally paid for Facebook.com.
In November, it was revealed that Facebook was launching a revamped version of Messages. It combined SMS, messaging, chat and e-mail into one interface, although Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly iterated that, “It’s not e-mail.”
One feature of the new Facebook Messages is that it assigns you a personalized Facebook.com e-mail address. If a friend sends a message to your Facebook e-mail, you will receive it in your Facebook Inbox. Unfortunately, Facebook’s employees were using the Facebook.com domain for their e-mails already, so they had to switch to another domain, which is why Facebook needed to buy Fb.com in the first place.
Facebook acquired the domain sometime last year from the American Farm Bureau Federation, which uses fb.org as its primary domain. At its annual meeting in Atlanta, the non-profit revealed that it earned $8.5 million on the sale of fb.com, according to Reuters."

Source:  Mashable, 12th January 2011

Microsoft sold 8m Kinects in the first 60 days

"Today at CES Microsoft announced that it sold some 8 million Kinect sensors in the first 60 days that the gadget was on the market.
Microsoft called 2010 the biggest year ever in Xbox history. As we noted before, the Kinect has been an effective rejuvenator of the Xbox 360 brand. More than 50 million Xbox consoles have been sold around the world.
Microsoft had estimated that it would sell 5 million Kinects last year. It exploded that tally, showing strong global demand for its natural user interface efforts.
In other news, there are now 30 million members of Xbox live. A new member joins every two seconds. If you are counting, 60 days from the launch of Kinect was the 2nd of January."

Source:  The Next Web, 6th January 2010

Mobile ad serving network AdMob receives 2 billion ad requests per day

"Google’s mobile ad network AdMob is releasing a number of staggering statistics today as the network begins its first full year under the Google umbrella. Google says that AdMob is receiving 2 billion ad requests per day, a data point which has quadrupled over the past year. To put that in perspective, as of May of 2010, AdMob was receiving nearly 1 billion ad requests per month."
Source:  Techcrunch, 6th January 2011

More than a third of Domino Pizza's deliveries are ordered online

"More than a third of Domino’s Pizza deliveries are now ordered online, the company said today. Mobile is increasingly proving an important source of orders – with more than £1m in orders placed through Domino’s iPhone app since it was launched in September 2010.
In all, said Domino’s in a fourth-quarter update to the City released today, 2010 ecommerce sales in the UK and Ireland reached £128.0m, up 63% from the £78.5m netted through online orders in 2009. That’s expected to increase still further, it said, with the imminent introduction of an ordering app for android phones."

Source:  Internet Retailer, 5th January 2011

Chinese ecommerce site Alibaba has 57m users

"[Jack Ma] started Alibaba in 1999, to help small firms find customers and suppliers without going through costly middlemen. Alibaba.com now claims to have 57m users, including some in nearly every country. It is sometimes likened to eBay, but is more like an online Yellow Pages.
Another venture [also owned by Alibaba Group], Taobao.com, sells to consumers. It has 300m customers and shifted $29 billion-worth of goods in 2009. It is like a scrappy cross between Amazon and eBay: it operates an online mall where vetted sellers can hawk their wares, and a site where anyone with a Chinese identity number can sell anything legal to anyone. It generates money through advertising.
Alibaba’s staff boast of the businesses they have nurtured. One Chinese village had a stack of rabbit meat, having skinned the creatures for fur. The chief asked for suggestions. A villager sold the lot on Alibaba.com. More commonly, clients are small firms that want to link cheaply to the global market. Machine-makers in Turkey or Britain use Alibaba to find cheap suppliers in China without having to go there. Buyers can read reviews that others have written about each seller, which fosters trust, though it is far from foolproof."
Source:  The Economist, 29th December 2010

40% of tweets come from a mobile device

"At CES, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed that 40% of all tweets come from mobile devices, demonstrating mobile’s increasing importance to the social media company.
On stage at the AllThingsD event at CES, Costolo bantered with Kara Swisher about why Twitter is at CES, its plans to become simpler and more consistent across platforms, and the impact of its celebrity users.
During the course of the conversation, Swisher asked Costolo which devices and operating systems are the most important to Twitter’s future and its health. Costolo responded by saying that 40% of all tweets are now composed on mobile devices, up from around 20% to 25% a year ago."

Source:  Mashable, 7th January 2011

Google mobile ads with the 'click to call' feature have a 6-8% higher click through rate than those that don't

"Surojit Chatterjee, senior product manager of mobile ads for Google, said campaigns with the click-to-call feature report 6-8 percent higher click-through rates than ads that don’t have it. He said for a feature that rolled out less than a year ago, click-to-call is having a meaningful impact with both advertisers and users. He said it also proves how much more focused mobile users are on fulfilling immediate actions. “On mobile phones, people are looking for things they can act on immediately,” Chatterjee said. “It shows that mobile users, if they find the right ad, they will act on it.”"
Source:  GigaOM, 21st December 2010

GPS-enabled dating app Grindr has over 1 million users

"We have over one million users in 180 countries worldwide – quite amazing growth since we launched just under two years ago. Our users spend a little over an hour each day on Grindr, logging in an average of 8 times, and about 270,000 of our users log on every day. See the attached fact sheet for a list of our top countries and cities around the world."
Source:  Grindr CEO Joel Simhkai, reported by TheNextWeb, 7th January 2011

The Yeo Valley marketing campaign in the UK in 2010 had a huge impact on sales

Click to enlarge

Source:  Nielsen Soundtrack Data, revealed in a blog post by their agency, BBH, 6th January 2011
(More info in the full blog post)

65% of American internet users have paid for online content

"Nearly two‐thirds of internet users – 65% – have paid to download or access some kind of online
content from the internet, ranging from music to games to news articles.  Music, software, and apps are
the most popular content that internet users have paid to access or download, although the range of
paid online content is quite varied and widespread.
[...]
In this survey we asked the following question: “Please tell me if you have ever paid to access or to
download any of the following types of online content?” And we found:
33% of internet users have paid for digital music online
33% have paid for software
21% have paid for apps for their cell phones or tablet computers
19% have paid for digital games
18% have paid for digital newspaper, magazine, or journal articles or reports
16% have paid for videos, movies, or TV shows
15% have paid for ringtones
12% have paid for digital photos
11% have paid for members‐only premium content from a website that has other free material on it
10% have paid for e‐books
7% have paid for podcasts
5% have paid for tools or materials to use in video or computer games
5% have paid for “cheats or codes” to help them in video games
5% have paid to access particular websites such as online dating sites or services
2% have paid for adult content
And 6% of internet users said they had paid for another kind of content that had not been mentioned in
the list of 15 we offered."
Source:  Pew Research Center, Paying For Online Content, 30th December 2010

More affluent US viewers time-shift their viewing more

"Comparing the demographic household makeup of prime-time US TV viewers who watch live TV, who have a DVR but watch live TV, and watch time-shifted TV within seven days after live broadcast, it is clear that households which delay the viewing of TV shows with a DVR are more likely to be wealthy.
For example, 30% of households engaging in DVR playback have an annual income of $100,000 or more, compared to about 25% of DVR households watching a prime-time show live and only 15% of all households watching live TV. Conversely, 22% of all live TV households have an annual income of less than $25,000, compared to 10% of DVR households watching live TV and 7% of households watching time-shifted TV."

Source:  Data from Nielsen, reported by MarketingCharts, 29th December 2010

Note - lots more DVP/PVR data in the full article

Facebook 'has over 600m users'

"Facebook has "600 million+ monthly active users," according to a document Goldman Sachs is showing clients interested in investing in Facebook at a $50 billion valuation.
Goldman, which is itself investing $450 million in Facebook, is in the process of offering $1.5 billion worth of common stock to its richest clients.
Facebook announced it crossed the 500 milliion monthly active user mark back in July. The site's official stats page says there are "more than 500 million active users" on the site. Now we know there are at least 100 million more."

Source:  Business Insider, 5th January 2011

Earlier - the last official update

The number of spam emails sent dropped dramatically in 2010

"The amount of junk e-mail being sent across the globe has seen a dramatic fall in recent months.
The volume of spam has dropped steadily since August, but the Christmas period saw a precipitous decline.
One security firm detected around 200 billion spam messages being sent each day in August, but just 50 billion in December.
While the reasons for the decline are not fully understood, spam watchers warn the lull may not last.
Around the Christmas holidays, three of the largest spam producers curtailed their activity, Paul Wood, a senior analyst at Symantec Hosted Services told BBC News.
"But it's hard to say why," he added."

Source:  Symantic Hosted Services, reported by BBC News, 6th January 2011

Chinese eCommerce site Taobao has 370m registered users

"Hangzhou-based C2C & B2C e-commerce site Taobao announced online shopping statistics for 2010 during a press conference in Beijing yesterday. Taobao reached 370 mln registered users, offered 800 mln items of merchandise, and recorded 60 mln peak daily visitors in 2010.
Single day transaction volume peaked at RMB 1.95 bln on November 11. For the month of November, total sales reached RMB 1.89 bln in Beijing, RMB 1.68 bln in Shanghai, and RMB 1.4 bln in Guangzhou.
Average transactions per user rose 35% YoY, and in December 13.5 mln users had more than 5 transactions each.
Taobao sold an average of 480,000 items per minute in 2010, broken down as follows: 864 items of clothing, 36 handsets, 880 cosmetics items, 85 books, 53 packs of disposable diapers, and 13 lamps. Most commonly purchased products included fast-moving consumer goods such as apparel and consumer electronics, up 120% YoY compared to the most commonly purchased goods in 2009, apparel and home decorations. For handsets, highest single day visits to Taobao's handset channel reached 17 mln users, while peak single day transaction value reached RMB 37 mln."

Source:  BiaNews/MarbridgeDaily, 7th January 2011

Magazine iPad edition download figures, November 2010

"After a splashy debut in the publishing world, magazines retooled for the iPad – such as Vanity Fair, Glamour and GQ – are not selling so well. Digital sales of these pubs dropped toward the end of this year, Women’s Wear Daily reports, based on figures made available to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
Vanity Fair sold 8,700 digital editions of its November issue, down from its average of about 10,500 for the August, September and October issues, WWD said. Glamour sold 4,301 digital editions in September – but then went on to post a drop of 20% in sales for October and then another 20% in November. At 11,000 in sales, GQ’s November edition posted its worst performance since the iPad was released. Wired, whose iPad version debuted to much fanfare, averaged 31,000 in digital sales between July and September, but then its numbers started to decline in October and November, to 22,000 and 23,000, respectively, WWD concluded."
Source:  Data from ABC, reported by MarketingVox, 30th December 2010
Note:  I'm assuming that the figures are US-only, or mainly from the US.

The most shared videos on YouTube in 2010

"Each of the top 10 had at least 1.5 million views via such sharing platforms. Interestingly, it also noted, a significant portion came from the latter part of the calendar, and YouTube's biggest lip-sync star this Fall, teenager Keenan Cahill, makes more than one appearance.
The full list follows, with a warning from YouTube - #3 contains profanity.
1 Teenage Dream (with me) by BeenerKeeKee19952
2 Baby Bob Marley by babybobmarley333
3 How to Trick People into Thinking You're Good Looking by JennaMarbles
4 Bed Intruder Song (also on iTunes) by schmoyoho
5 Ken Block's Gymkhana Three, Part 2; Ultimate Playground; l'… by DCshoesFILM
6 Driscoll Middle School Trick Play by MillerBucVision
7 Down On Me (With Me And 50 Cent) by BeenerKeeKee19952
8 Cebu Pacific Flight Attendants Dancing by wingco1129
9 Yosemitebear Mountain Giant Double Rainbow by Hungrybear9562
10 Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus by AlphabetPhotography"

Source:  Data from YouTube, reported by MarketingVox, 30th December 2010

YouTube link here

Ebay generated nearly $2bn in sales from mobile devices in 2010

"The way people shop is changing, with global eBay mobile sales more than tripling in 2010, generating nearly $2 billion in sales – up from $600m in 2009. Consumers increasingly want to be able to shop anytime, anyplace, anywhere, with eBay’s apps downloaded more than 30 million times in eight languages and over 190 countries.
M-commerce offers consumers instant access to eBay’s global marketplace whilst on-the-move, with shoppers snapping up everything from houses to cars through eBay’s apps:
The UK has been the fastest adopter of mcommerce , with more Brits shopping through the eBay app than anywhere else in Europe
An item purchased on average every two seconds through the eBay buyer app in the UK
13 pieces of clothing, pairs of shoes and accessories are sold every minute through eBay’s mobile apps worldwide
94 bids made every minute via eBay’s mobile apps worldwide
To enable shoppers to quickly and easily find the best prices online, eBay acquired RedLaser, the leading paid for barcode scanning app which lets users scan and upload product information and compare prices. Shoppers have been taking advantage of the technology, with downloads of eBay’s RedLaser iPhone app now at seven million – up by over 300% since eBay’s acquisition in June 2010."

Source:  Press release from Ebay, 6th January 2011

Older people tend to write longer Facebook statuses

"Younger people express more negative emotions (including anger) and swear more. They use more pronouns referring to oneself (“I”, “my”, etc.) and talk more about school. Older people write longer updates, use more prepositions and articles, and talk more about other people, including their family.
Word usage of more “popular” people also differs from people with a lower friend count. People with more friends tend to use more of the pronoun “you” and other second person pronouns. They write longer updates, and use more words referring to music and sports. More "popular" people also talk less about their families, are less emotional overall, use fewer past tense and present tense verbs and words related to time."

Source:  Analysis from Facebook's Data Team, 23rd December 2010

(Lots more analysis shown)

YouTube streamed more than 700 billion videos in 2010

"As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on another incredible year in online video. During the last 12 months you all watched more than 700 billion YouTube videos, and uploaded more than 13 million hours of content to the site. We met a bunch of new faces (and fruits) and celebrated as new YouTube partners hit the big time with millions of views. Indeed, our partner program grew to around 15,000 participants worldwide."

Source:  YouTube blog, 22nd December 2010

It took CityVille less than a month to become the most popular game on Facebook

"Today, CityVille added an astounding 6.9 users to end the day at 61.7 million monthly active users, compared with 56.8 million for FarmVille, according to stat collector AppData. Before today, FarmVille, also made by Zynga, was the biggest social game on Facebook, and it also happened to be the biggest game on any platform in terms of the sheer volume of users.
Now the challenge will be to make money from all of those users. If Zynga hangs on to them, it stands a chance of becoming a far bigger player in social games than it already is.
When CityVille took off shortly after its launch on Dec. 2, it was clear that its growth path was going to break all records. We knew this would happen, but it’s still pretty astounding. It’s going to be a pretty Merry Christmas for Zynga. Zynga’s traffic on Facebook has now soared to 261.6 million monthly active users, which is probably near its all-time peak. In November, Zynga had around 198 million monthly active users."
Source:  VentureBeat, 24th December 2010

Facebook users uploaded 750m photos over the New Year weekend

"People celebrated New Year's on Facebook by uploading a record 750M photos over the weekend."
Source:  Tweet from Facebook, 4th January 2011

3G Penetration by market Q2 2010

Click to enlarge

Source:  Page 5 of Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask & Answer, Morgan Stanley, 16th November 2010
Note - Last year

BitTorrent has over 100m monthly users

"BitTorrent, Inc., an innovator of advanced technologies to efficiently move large files across the Internet, today announced a key milestone, growing to over 100m worldwide monthly users of its two software products--the original BitTorrent Mainline, and the iconic µTorrent.
"This is an exciting day for our team. Our vision is to build a complete technology ecosystem comprised of software, content and devices, designed to connect modern content creators with a massive digital audience," said Eric Klinker, CEO at BitTorrent. "This milestone highlights the size of our user base and the power of our software."
Additional user statistics:
Average daily active users: Over 20 million
Average daily client downloads: Over 400,000
52 languages (including English)
Clients checking in from over 220 countries every day"

Source:  Press release from BitTorrent, 3rd January 2011

The UK's 10 biggest advertisers 2010

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from Nielsen, reported by Marketing Magazine, 4th January 2011
Notes (from the original source):  "The figures cover the year to 15 December and do not include: internet advertising for the period 1 October to 15 December; outdoor, cinema, direct mail and door drop advertising for the period 1 November to 15 December; regional press and magazine advertising for the period 1 to 15 December; or TV and radio advertising for the period 6 to 15 December."

Growth in US social network use 2008-2010

Click to enlarge

Source:  Page 16 of Pew Research Center's Generations 2010 Report, 16th December 2010

Two million children in the UK have no internet connection at home

"More than one million children in Britain live in homes without computers and a further two million have no internet connection at home, a charity said yesterday).
The e-Learning Foundation said it feared the gap between rich and poor pupils' performance at school would widen unless more was done "

Source:  Research by the e-Learning Foundation, reported by The Guardian, 28th December 2010

China had 450m internet users at the end of November 2010

"Wang Chen, director of China's State Council Information Office (SCIO), announced yesterday that as of the end of November China had 450 mln Internet users for a penetration rate of 33.9%, up 66 mln users from the end of 2009 with an annual growth rate of 20.3%."
Source:  SCIO, reported by Xinmin Evening News 31st December 2010, via Marbridge Daily, 31st December 2010