Friday 28 September 2012

25 billion apps have been downloaded from the Google Play store

"Just six months after its launch, Google Play has reached 25 billion-with-a-B downloads.
Play has become the de facto application store for the Android platform, replacing Google’s range of Android app-, game-, and music-purchasing software. Today, the marketplace contains 675,000 total applications, including games.
Before Play launched, Google Music, Google Books, the Android Market, and a few other separate products made up a diverse (and not in a good way) media store for all Google and Android products and devices. The diversity read like fragmentation to frustrated users with app overload."

Attitudes to mobile websites among US mobile users



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Source:  Google Mobile Ads Blog, 25th September 2012
Methodology:  "Discover these and more findings from, What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, a study from Google (conducted by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, independent market research firms). The report surveyed 1,088 US adult smartphone Internet users in July 2012."

45% of Americans say TV is mainly where they watch web video


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Source:  Data from NPD, reported by AllThingsD, 26th September 2012

Mobile accounts for 18% of Domino's Pizza's UK online sales

"Domino’s Pizza Group, today announces its interim management statement for the 13 week period up to 23 September 2012. The document in its entirety might not be a tech news spectacular, but it does have a few threads that show how UK pizza lovers are also fans of convenience.
Overall, system sales for the period were up by 7.9% to £136.4m, with year-to-date system sales up by 10.0% to £424.1m.
Online sales for the pie seller have continue to increase, with e-commerce accounting for 58.4% of UK delivered sales. So not only do we like our pizza delivered, but it seems that the Domino’s website is striking the right chord with users making their orders online.
Total online sales for the period rose by 39.3% to £62.8m and have reached £184.9m for the year-to-date. Within this figure, mobile sales continue to rise sharply, up by 46.9%, and now account for 18.5% of total online sales."

Wednesday 26 September 2012

100 million eBay mobile apps have been downloaded

"eBay, a global leader in mobile commerce, is celebrating its 100 millionth app download across its suite of apps spanning the major mobile operating systems. Available in eight languages, and in more than 190 different countries around the world, the eBay apps have been downloaded 25 million times in the last six months alone, making them some of the most popular and successful shopping apps anywhere. The growth of eBay’s mobile properties also aligns with the milestone of 100 million listings via mobile, as a record number of sellers choose to list their products on eBay through devices that didn’t exist just a few years ago.
Globally, eBay expects to transact $10 billion in mobile volume in 2012, which doubles last year’s total.  That figure is more than the annual GDP of 75 countries throughout the world .  With mobile commerce growing from a $3.4 billion market in the U.S. in 2010 to a projected $119 billion across the globe by 2015 , mobile innovation is a key force behind eBay’s strategy to make buying and selling easier and more enjoyable anytime, anywhere, and on any device."

The London 2012 Olympics 'was the most watched TV event in US History'

"Roughly 217 million people in the United States watched the London Games, making it the most watched television event in history. And unlike other big, live events like the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards, the Olympics offer researchers a prolonged, 17-day period during which to study behavior.
That sandbox showed that eight million people downloaded NBC’s mobile apps for streaming video, and there were two billion page views across all of NBC’s Web sites and apps. Forty-six percent of 18- to 54-year-olds surveyed said they “followed the Olympics during my breaks at work,” and 73 percent said they “stayed up later than normal” to watch, according to a survey of about 800 viewers by the market research firm uSamp.
Forty-six percent said they “delayed doing laundry and other household chores” to catch events like gymnastics, where the United States inched out a win over Russia and Romania for the gold, and swimming, where Michael Phelps narrowly came in second in the men’s 200-yard butterfly."
Note - As I pointed out when the UK figures were reported, it's not that helpful to compare a sporting event spread out over more than 2 weeks to a single televised TV event

Monday 24 September 2012

Apple sold over five million iPhone 5s in the opening 3 days

"Apple® today announced it has sold over five million of its new iPhone® 5, just three days after its launch on September 21, and more than 100 million iOS devices have been updated with iOS 6, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system. iPhone 5 is available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the UK, and will be available in 22 more countries on September 28 and more than 100 countries by the end of the year. Demand for iPhone 5 exceeded the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders have been shipped to customers, many are scheduled to be shipped in October."
Source:  Press release from Apple, 24th September 2012

The demographics of American Instagram users


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Source:  Photos & Videos as Social Currency Online, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 13th September 2012
Note 1 - The 3 stars next to the figure for 18-29s means 'treat with caution' - that's why I haven't used it as the headline for the story.
Note 2 - The report also has similar figures for Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr & more

There are 193m 3G subscribers in China


"China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has released its August 2012 telecom industry statistics. The figures for the month were as follows:
[...]
Total telephone subscribers saw a net increase of 9.21 mln in August to reach 1.354 bln. Mobile subscribers grew by 10.21 mln to 1.072 bln, and fixed-line subscribers dropped by 1.01 mln to 282.18 mln. Broken down by traditional fixed-line and PHS, the traditional (i.e. non-PHS) fixed-line subscriber base decreased by 678,000 to 268.39 mln, while the PHS subscriber base declined by 328,000 subs to 13.79 mln. 8.80 mln new 3G subscribers were added in August to reach a total 3G user base of 192.56 mln.
A total of 73.07 bln SMS messages were sent during the month of August, bringing the total for the first 8 months of 2012 to 597.58 bln, a 3.9% increase over the figure during the same period of 2011.
Broadband added 1.86 mln new registered users in August to reach a total of 168.29 mln. Dial-up decreased by 1.02 mln users, reducing the total dial-up user base to 4.70 mln."
Source:  MIIT via Marbridge Daily, 21st September 2012

Friday 21 September 2012

45% of pictures posted to Instagram use no filter



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Source:  Webstagram, retrieved 21st September 2012, based on analysis of over 2 million photos
Note - This also includes Hipstamatic pictures (some are their filters) but the vast majority will be from Instagram

US Newspaper advertising revenue 1950 - 2012



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Source:  Newspaper Association of America / Business Insider, 15th September 2012

More than 3 million UK smartphone owners scanned a QR code in Q2 2012

"More than 3m UK consumers used their smartphone to scan QR codes in Q2, according to new data from a comScore survey of 15,000 consumers.
This equates to 11.4% of the total smartphone audience and represents a year-on-year growth of 43%.
But the data suggests that other European nations have actually been quicker on the uptake than the UK. For example, 18.6% of German smartphone owners scanned a QR code in Q2, a YoY growth of 128%.
While in Spain 16% of users have used the technology, up a massive 218% from the same period last year.
The study claims that across the EU5 more than 17m smartphone owners have scanned a QR code."

Revenues from digital books rose 89% Y-o-Y in the first half of 2012

"The Publishers Association’s Sales Monitor shows that the total invoiced value of digital fiction books sales reported by participating companies saw a huge increase of 188% by value in January-June 2012 in comparison to the same period in 2011. Other strongly performing categories include children’s digital books and digital non-fiction books, which increased by 171% and 128% respectively during the same period. Overall digital sales of general consumer titles (including fiction, non-fiction and children’s) increased from £30m to £84m between January-June 2011 and 2012.
These increases reflect overall growth of 89.1% in digital sales (from £77m to £145m), while physical book sales fell 0.4% by value (from £985m to £982m) and 3.8% by volume (from 260m to 251m) over the period.
The total value of sales (digital and non-digital) increased by 6.1% in January-June 2012 in comparison to the same period in 2011, leading to £1.1bn revenue in the first six months of the year.  Digital sales accounted for 12.9% of the total value of sales in January-June 2012, up from 7.2% in the equivalent period in 2011"

Average time spent per session for TV, Online, Tablet & Mobile



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Source:  Data from Google, reported by TechCrunch, 29th August 2012
Note - Lots more data in the full article
Methodology:  "polling 1,611 people across 15,738 media interactions and nearly 8,000 hours of activity during Q2" US data only
Full report here

Nearly 20% of online women in the US use Pinterest

"In a recent study released by business intelligence firm RJ Metrics, more than 17% of all pinboards are categorized under Home.  More than 12% of pinboards are categorized under Arts and Crafts, followed by Style/Fashion (11.7%), Food (10.5%), and Inspiration/Education (9%).  Food is the fastest growing category on Pinterest and generates the most repins.
The survey found that Pinterest is most popular among women between the ages of 18 and 29, those with some college education, and those with an annual household income of $50,000—$75,000.  While 19% of women are using the site, just 5% of online men are on Pinterest.
The survey also found that women are more likely than men to post images that they’ve created themselves or found online.  Some 47% of women and 43% of men said they’ve shared photos they’ve created themselves online, while 40% of women and 31% of men said they’ve shared images they’ve found online."

There were over 600,000 check ins at London 2012 Olympic venues on Facebook

Note - Alex Balfour is Head of New Media, London Olympic and Paralympic Games 2012

26% of affluent Americans own a tablet; 47% live in a household with a tablet

"Affluent interest in mobile devices and digital media continues to grow. The 2012 Mendelsohn Affluent survey from Ipsos MediaCT finds that 26% of Affluents personally own a tablet, and 47% live in a household with a tablet – figures that essentially tripled from 2011. More than half (55%) now own a smartphone, up from 45% in 2011. Growth was evident in the downloading of the three most widely-used categories of apps – games (68%), weather (62%) and music (62%) – as well as apps related to social networking (45%) and books/e-readers (40%). In 2012, 4.7 million Affluents downloaded a magazine app, more than doubling from 2.0 million in 2011; 5.9 million downloaded a newspaper app, up from 3.6 million in 2011. Affluents reported using the Internet an average of 37.4 hours weekly, up 14% from 2011, with the largest growth seen in sites related to social media, entertainment and shopping."
Methodology:  "Now in its 36th year, the Mendelsohn Affluent Survey is the definitive single source research tool for consumer insights and media planning regarding Affluent Americans. Among other uses, it serves as a currency study for Affluent print advertising – the agreed-upon source of audience measurement data used by agencies, advertisers and media companies in negotiating the cost and placement of advertising. The 2012 Mendelsohn Affluent Survey was conducted from March through July, and has a sample size of 13,794 adults living in households with at least $100,000 in annual household income. The survey uses a random probability sample drawn from address-based sample frame as well as other rigorous methodologies to ensure the results are projectable to the population of America’s 59 million Affluents."

Google+ has 100 million monthly active users

"This week we also hit an important milestone--over 400,000,000 people have upgraded to Google+. It was only a year ago that we opened public sign-up, and we couldn’t have imagined that so many people would join in just 12 months. While Google+ is all about creating a better experience across Google, it’s also a destination. And here too, I’m happy to report that we have just crossed 100,000,000 monthly active users on Google+ (plus.google.com and mobile app)."

Thursday 20 September 2012

Nearly 11% of 4 digit passwords are '1234'

"I was able to find almost 3.4 million four digit passwords. Every single one of the of the 10,000 combinations of digits from 0000 through to 9999 were represented in the dataset.
The most popular password is  1234  …
… it’s staggering how popular this password appears to be. Utterly staggering at the lack of imagination …
… nearly 11% of the 3.4 million passwords are  1234  !!!"
Data:  "By combining the exposed password databases I’ve encountered [from leaks], and filtering the results to just those rows that are exactly four digits long [0-9] the output is a database of all the four digit character combinations that people have used as their account passwords.
Given that users have a free choice for their password, if users select a four digit password to their online account, it’s not a stretch to use this as a proxy for four digit PIN codes."

Users of the site Quirky created 15 new products for the iPhone 5 within a week of the launch

"As soon as the new specs for the iPhone 5 arrived last week, the users at Quirky, a worldwide group of inventors, began submitting their ideas. In 24 hours the community, now over 240,000 strong, had pitched nearly 2,000 new products. In a rapid fire evaluation session with CEO Ben Kaufman, the field was narrowed to 50. And over the next week, the team of designers and engineers working in house, prototyped, lasercut, and 3D printed their way to a set of 15 finished products which went on sale today at fellow Silicon Alley startup Fab.com."

100 billion searches a month are made on Google

"A stat we haven’t heard from Google for a long time. How many searches it handles: 100 billion per month."
Earlier - 1.2 billion a day in 2007 - warning - different methodology
Note:  The 2012 figure could include all of the searches on Google properties, especially those on YouTube.  Bt if not it shows a 2.5 x increase in 5 years - 1.2bn in 2007 vs 3.3bn in 2012

Smartphone ownership in America is highest among 25-34s

"Overall, young adults are leading the growth in smartphone ownership in the U.S., with 74 percent of 25-34 year olds now owning smartphones, up from 59 percent in July 2011. Interestingly, teenagers between 13 and 17 years old demonstrated the most dramatic increases in smartphone adoption, with the majority of American teens (58%) owning a smartphone, compared to roughly a third (36%) of teens saying they owned a smartphone just a year ago.
“Among most age groups smartphones represent the majority of U.S. mobile subscribers, but American teens were the age group adopting smartphones the fastest,” Nichole Henderson, a Nielsen analyst, said. “As teens increase in their share of smartphone owners, mobile carriers and manufacturers should consider how to market to this growing group.”"

Wednesday 19 September 2012

Mobile web users spend more time consuming media on their smartphones than watching TV

"Mobile web users now spend more time consuming media on smartphones than they do watching TV, according to research by ad network InMobi.
Britan's mobile data users consume an average nine hours of media a day - 2 hours, 47 minutes of which is spent on mobile, compared to 2 hours, 24 minutes watching TV.
It's a similar story in the US, where mobile web users also spend nine hours consuming media, and where mobile (2 hours, 24 minutes) again outpaces TV (2 hours, 21 minutes).
In Germany, meanwhile, mobile is leading by a much greater margin. Of the 6 hours, 30 mins of media time each day, mobile makes up 2 hours, 5 minutes - significantly more than the 1 hour, 25 minutes spent watching TV. More than 40 per cent of German respondents stated mobile as their primary or exclusive means of going online."

Smartphones influence approximately 6% of UK in-store retail sales


"Almost half of UK smartphone owners have used their device to research product information before or during a shopping trip, according to new research from Deloitte Digital, the firm’s digital services practice.  As a result, around 6% of in-store retail sales are being influenced by smartphone use, equivalent to £15.2bn of sales this year.  This is almost double the value of direct purchases made through mobiles which are estimated at around £8bn in 2012.  By 2016, more than 80% of consumers are expected to own a smartphone and Deloitte estimates that between 15% and 18% of in-store sales will be smartphone-influenced, equivalent to £35-43bn."

Monday 17 September 2012

Shazam has 250 million users

"Shazam®, the world’s leading media engagement company, today announced that it has achieved the major milestone of exceeding a quarter of a billion users globally."

Mobile payments company Square is valued at $3.25 billion

"Square, the mobile payments startup headed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has closed a more than $200 million fundraising round that will value the company at $3.25 billion.
The company had previously raised $100 million in 2011 valuing it at more than $1 billion, and was first revealed to be seeking another round of funding in late July. According to Square’s press release announcing the news, the investors who participated in the latest funding round included Citi Ventures, Rizvi Traverse Management and Starbucks."

Ed Sheeran's album + was illegally shared more than 300,000 in 6 months in the UK

"The data, collected independently by Musicmetric and seen exclusively by the BBC, is believed to be the biggest analysis of its kind to be conducted.
It monitored the global activity of BitTorrent files - a method of obtaining files by downloading from many users at the same time.
The data's release came as measures to attempt to curb illegal downloading began to take hold, such as the blocking of popular piracy websites and the relegation and removal of search results from Google.
Musicmetric's findings said that singer Ed Sheeran was the most pirated act in the UK for the first half of 2012, followed by hip-hop duo Rizzle Kicks and Barbadian megastar Rihanna.
The data suggested that Ed Sheeran's 2011 album + (Plus) was illegally downloaded an average of 55,512 times every month, and was the most popular download in over 460 towns and cities in the UK.
Legal UK sales of his album in the first half of 2012 hit the 448,000 mark - making it the fourth most popular album behind releases from Adele, Emeli Sande and Lana Del Rey."
Source:  BBC News, 17th September 2012
Note - more data, including country comparisons in the full article

Chinese mobile messaging app Weixin has 200 million users

"Chinese internet giant Tencent today announced that its Weixin (WeChat) mobile messaging application has crossed the 200 mln user mark. The app, launched in early 2011, exceeded 100 mln registered users 14 months later in March 2012, and reached 200 mln within six months."

Apple received more than 2 million pre-orders for the iPhone 5 in 24 hours

"Apple® today announced pre-orders of its iPhone® 5 topped two million in just 24 hours, more than double the previous record of one million held by iPhone 4S. Demand for iPhone 5 exceeds the initial supply and while the majority of pre-orders will be delivered to customers on September 21, many are scheduled to be delivered in October. iPhone 5 is the thinnest and lightest iPhone ever, completely redesigned to feature a stunning new 4-inch Retina™ display; an Apple-designed A6 chip for blazing fast performance; and ultrafast wireless technology—all while delivering even better battery life."

Friday 14 September 2012

Apple & Amazon quarterly profits compared



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Source:  Read Write Web, 10th September 2012

Headphones that cost over $100 account for 43% of all US headphone revenue

"Sales of headphones priced over $100 have become the engine of growth in the audio market as a result, growing 65 percent (units) in the first half of 2012 and accounting for 43 percent of all headphone revenue, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service. Monster accounts for approximately half of the sales in this segment."

Mobile represents 'just under 40%' of The Guardian's news traffic

Note - Bradley describes himself as "Mobile dude at the @guardian - Loves Art, Music and Innovation."

'Return fraud' cost US retailers $14.4bn in 2011

"TIMES may be tough, but women still need little black dresses to wear to posh parties. So some buy a fancy frock, dance the night away in it and then return it to the store, pretending that it does not fit. To ensure a refund, they may even unpick a seam and complain that the garment is faulty. This is an example of a growing problem. Retailers call it “de-shopping”.
Return fraud, which also includes such things as selling shoplifted goods back to the store from which they were pinched, is becoming more widespread. It cost American retailers $14.4 billion in 2011, according to the National Retail Federation, up from $9.4 billion in 2009. The worst offenders are women returning clothes.
Online stores are particularly vulnerable. Few people will risk buying something to wear without trying it on first, so cyber-retailers need to have generous returns policies. But other scams are gaining popularity, too. Electrical retailers say that some sports fans now “borrow” large high-definition televisions to watch big matches."
Note - Not strictly digital, but fascinating stats & facts

Apps 'are now an integral part of British family life'

"More than 1/3 of British parents [with app-enabled devices] now see apps as integral to family life
New research out today from Disney UK reveals that in just four years since the first app was downloaded, Britain has become a nation of ‘Appy Families.  75% of parents with app-enabled devices share them with their kids and more than one third of parents already consider apps to be an ‘integral part’ of family life.
Disney surveyed 2,000 UK parents who own an app enabled device and found that despite the wealth of free apps, 49% of parents are ‘appy to spend money on apps each month. Even with the tough economic environment, the research shows two in five parents spend up to £10 each month, which means UK families could be spending as much as an estimated £132 million a year.
The findings also reveal that more than half of parents questioned have downloaded an app at the request of their child (or children).  Once downloaded, it’s the kids who instantly understand the technology and functionality, with 56% of parents having had their child teach them, or another family member, what to do. There is no age gap to getting ‘appy either with 38% of children having shown their grandparents how to use apps.
It’s not just the older kids getting ‘appy, with almost half of parents, who have one child aged five or under, saying their little one uses at least one app-enabled device.  31% say their young child has taught another family member how to use an app, particularly a grandparent (62%)."

Instagram has more than 100 million users

"At the TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Francisco today, Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg told Michael Arrington of CrunchFund one major new figure: Instagram has passed 100 million users. “[Instagram] just crossed 100 million users,” Zuckerberg said. “They’re killing it.”"
Source:  The Next Web, 11th September 2012
Earlier - 80m announced on 26th July

There are more than one billion search queries on Facebook each day

"It’s no secret that Facebook is trying to get the most bang for its buck from its search bar. Companies are throwing money at Facebook trying to leapfrog competitors via sponsored results. Zuckerberg said the company is intrigued by what it can do with search, noting that there are more than 1 billion queries through the social network each day. He wants the search engine within Facebook to aid users who want to know things such as which restaurants nearby their friends have favorably reviewed and who has worked at a company they may be applying to."
Source:  AllFacebook, 11th September 2012

235 million people are playing games on Facebook each month

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says 235 million people are playing games on Facebook each month — proving the platform is a new home for gamers.
Zuckerberg made the remarks at TechCrunch Disrupt Tuesday afternoon, during a live interview with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.
Zuckerberg made his point about gaming after talking about what things he was excited about on the Facebook platform. He mentioned that Zynga, who has been struggling lately with falling stock prices and departing executives, was losing market share on the platform, but that other game companies had risen to take its place.
In particular, Zuckerberg mentioned two rising stars by name — Kixeye and King.com."

19 million drivers are covered by 'black box' car insurance

"Google recently announced huge steps forward with their self-driving cars, and while we may not have reached the future automobiles envisioned in films such as Minority Report, we can see some of that technology on the horizon. With more than 30 vehicle manufacturers launching telematics services in the US, China, and Europe; over 19 million drivers covered by telematics-impacted insurance policies; and over 15% of all new passenger cars in Europe being smart-key fitted, some parts of the future are already here."

Nearly 16m bets were placed on Betfair via mobile phones in Q2 2012

"The Euro 2012 football championships helped Betfair post a jump in sales, with soaring numbers of people using mobile phones to place bets.
The online gaming group saw revenues up 13% to £91.6m in the three months to 31 July. UK growth was up 23%.
The number of bets using mobile phones rose 114%, while revenues generated were up 98%, a trading update revealed.
[...]
The number of bets using mobile phones increased by 114% to 15.8 million, with revenue up 98% to £8.2m during the quarter."

Tuesday 11 September 2012

An average of 117 searches per searcher were made in June 2012

"Evaluating search growth centers around two primary metrics:
Number of Searchers
Total Searches Conducted
From these numbers, we can then derive a variety of consumption metrics such as Searches per Searcher and Searcher Conversion. For this analysis, I used comScore qSearch, which is based on a two million desktop/PC based searcher panel covering more than 170 countries.
In June 2012, 1.47 billion searchers conducted 173 billion searches (with year-over-year increases of 10% and 12%, respectively), making for 117 searches for every searcher on the planet. If you were to add in the number of searches now performed on mobile devices and tablets, the numbers would be even more staggering. Social Media may get most of the news clippings lately, but search activity is still one of the most popular activities on the Internet.
Search is a relatively mature online activity that will not continue to experience double digit growth in new searchers forever, so the ongoing growth opportunity would appear to be in the number of searches each person conducts. But 117 searches per searcher worldwide already seems like a lot, doesn’t it? However, when you break this number down by different regions and countries, you begin to get a better sense of where the search growth will come from in succeeding years.
While Europe and Asia Pac have the highest number of searchers and generate the highest overall volume of search queries, the search utilization by region shows a different story with Latin America taking the gold:
Latin America: 162
Europe: 135
North America: 129
Asia Pacific: 97
Middle East-Africa: 92"
Note - Desktop searches only

Gopher protocol, an early alternative to HTTP & the World Wide Web, stagnated because its developers charged a licencing fee

"As I pick up my pita bread, I observe that his 1989 proposal for the universal linked information system that became the web reads more like an attempt to solve nitty-gritty organisational problems than a utopian dream of social change. At Cern, he was struggling to collaborate with volunteers around the world. Cern’s multinational staff moved around so much that the institution’s telephone directory was among the first databases he wanted to link up online. “The other projects I was doing were done by volunteers all over the world,” he recalls. “I wanted to be able to have it as a very collaborative play space, and still the web hasn’t fully provided what I wanted then in terms of being a really powerful collaborative medium.”
Berners-Lee’s belief that his invention is unfinished has turned the geek into an activist. “The web is a social invention as much as a technical invention,” he says. “It’s the whole cat and mouse game between the readers and writers that makes the web work.”
What also made it work, he adds, is that he and Robert Cailliau, his collaborator at Cern, “badgered” the institution not to seek royalties from the invention. The free web soon raced ahead of the rival Gopher protocol, developed at the University of Minnesota, which charged a licence fee."

Monday 10 September 2012

iPad revenues are three times higher than iPhone revenues on Apple's Newsstand


Source:  Report from App Annie, 6th September 2012
Methodology:  "The analyses and insights discussed were drawn from App Annie’s Intelligence data. App Annie takes responsibility for the claims and insights in this article that are based on this data and research. However, App Annie does not take responsibility for any actions or outcomes undertaken by 3rd parties, as a result of this article or the analyses or data contained within."

Friday 7 September 2012

UK mCommerce sales grew by over 300% Y-o-Y in June 2012

"The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index show that summer sunshine and Olympic fever loosened purse strings with online sales experiencing its highest growth this year, recording a huge 17% jump on July 2011 and a 9% increase on June 2012. This equated to an estimated £6.5bn spent online (an average of £128  per person), a significant rise on the £5.8bn spent during July 2011. Total growth for the year to date stands at approximately 13% - in line with previous forecasts.
Clothing sales, helped by brief sunny spells and ongoing price cuts, made a welcomed return to double figure growth in July,  leaping 18% on June 2012 and up 15% on July last year.  New autumn lines hitting the shelves also contributed to the clothing spike encouraging shoppers to update their wardrobes earlier than usual.
Travel was up 12% year on year, recovering from a relatively sluggish performance in July 2011 when the sector was down 1% year on year. At £1,050, the average basket value (amount spent in a single purchase) broke the £1,000 barrier for the second time this year – a year-on-year increase of 24%. This growth suggests that despite economic uncertainty, Brits are prepared to spend to compensate for the disappointing summer weather seen in early July.
Electricals performed particularly well in July, increasing 30% on the same time last year, boosted by the wet weather and the need for indoor entertainment. The sector was also helped by Brits jumping online to buy high definition televisions and other electrical devices to guarantee the best seat in the house to watch team GB’s performance in the Olympics.
m-Retail sales continued to grow at a huge rate in July, recording a 313% increase on the same time last year. Whilst this is still very strong growth, it falls short of the year-on-year growth experienced in May and June 2012 (up 360% and 356%, respectively)."

Coca Cola was the first retail brand to reach 50 million fans on Facebook

"Coca-Cola passed 50 million fans on Facebook shortly after 9 a.m. Tuesday, according to a spokesperson for the company.
Several celebrities like Rihanna and Lady Gaga have more more than 50 million Facebook fans, as do services like YouTube and Facebook, but Coca-Cola is the first retail brand to hit this milestone. Disney, Converse and Starbucks, three of the other most popular retail brands, each have fewer than 40 million fans on Facebook at the moment.
To celebrate crossing such a major threshold, Coca-Cola launched a new application on its Facebook page. The app encourages fans to submit ideas for inventions and causes that this online community of 50 million can turn its energy towards to improve the world. Coca-Cola will ultimately provide support for one of these ideas and unveil the finished result sometime next year."

Thursday 6 September 2012

Google is activating 1.3 million Android devices a day

"It’s looks like Android is not about to stop snowballing any time soon with the recent figures, direct from Eric Schmidt, that its daily activation rate has reached an epic 1.3 million a day. Bearing in mind these are unique activations we’re talking about, it’s truly mind blowing. If that wasn’t enough, Android now has an install base of 480 million users. Not too shabby for the little green robot."
Earlier - 1 million a day in July (& 1m NFC devices a week)

Samsung sold 20 million Galaxy S smartphones in 100 days

"Samsung said its global sales of the recently-released Galaxy S III smartphone have hit the 20 million mark in just over three months.
The long-awaited smartphone's roll out to the masses was initially hampered by delays and supply chain issues. It launched in Europe on May 29, but was only brought to the U.S. market in mid-June after major carriers held back on selling what few devices it had due to "manufacturer supply constraints."
But Samsung averted the crisis and managed to reach its 10 million sales in July target set by Samsung mobile business president J.K. Shin, thanks to strong demand in Europe."
Source:  ZDNet, 6th September 2012
Earlier - 10m in less than 2 months - 23rd July 2012
Earlier - 5m Galaxy S IIs in 85 days - 28th July 2011

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Skype accounts for nearly a third of international phone calls



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Source:  GigaOM, 3rd September 2012

Nearly 90% of American internet homes have broadband

"New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) found that nearly 90% of US households that use a laptop or desktop computer at home currently subscribe to a broadband Internet service. Five years ago, 65% of households with a computer subscribed to a broadband service.
LRG's research also found that higher-income households are much more likely than lower income households to use computers at home, and to subscribe to residential broadband services"

The video PSY - GANGNAM STYLE achieved 100m views on YouTube within 50 days



Viewcount retrieved 5th September 2012; video uploaded 15th July 2012
Comments - 479,845
1,050,849 Likes, 43,812 Dislikes
Earlier - It took Rebecca Black's Friday 63 days to get to 100m views
Update - 7th Sept - it's growing at a rate of about 5m a day
Update - 19th September - now at 220m, it's growing at more than 10m a day
Update - 1st October - now at 336m
Update - 19th October - now at 500m

The Guardian Media Group made a loss of £75.6m in 2011-12

"GMG yesterday unveiled a £75.6m loss for the year to 31 March as its Guardian and Observer newspapers continued to lose money and it took a £54.2m write-off on the value of its GMG Radio business, which it has since sold to Global Radio.
The loss compared with a £9m profit the year before when newspaper losses were offset by income from the group's investment funds, its stake in Trader Media Group and the conferences and trade magazines business.
Overall revenue from continuing businesses was £254.4m, virtually level with the £255.1m of sales recorded in the previous year.
[...]
GMG's result incorporates the £44.2m loss posted by its Guardian News & Media subsidiary last month. Mr Rusbridger was paid a total of £457,000 in the year to the end of March."

Monday 3 September 2012

The impact of online restaurant ratings

"It is something every restaurateur and hotel owner knows: good reviews boost takings while terrible ones can close you down. And, in an age when everyone can be an online critic, ratings have never been more important. But until now no one could be sure just how important the online star ratings system employed by sites such as Toptable and Tripadvisor could be for a business's fortunes.
Work by two economists at the University of California, Berkeley, Professors Michael Anderson and Jeremy Magruder, published in this month's edition of the Economic Journal, represents the first attempt to gauge the relationship between online star ratings and customers' purchasing decisions. The pair focused on the effects of positive online ratings on 300 San Francisco restaurants that were then collated to form a star system on Yelp.com, a popular US ratings site.
They found that a restaurant with a rating improved by just half a star – on a scale of 1 to 5 – was much more likely to be full at peak dining times.
Indeed, an extra half-star rating caused a restaurant's 7pm bookings to sell out on from 30% to 49% of the evenings it was open for business.
Significantly, the two economists found that the increase in trade happened without any change in prices or the quality of food and service, confirming that it was the reviews that brought in the new customers.
The economists write: "The findings of this study demonstrate that – although social media sites and forums may not generate the financial returns for which investors yearn – they play an increasingly important role in how consumers judge the quality of goods and services."
The economists conceded that, while restaurants with strong reviews on the site did better business than poorly reviewed restaurants, establishing cause and effect was difficult.
"After all, restaurants that get good reviews are those that appeal to consumers and they would probably do well even in the absence of any reviews," the pair write. However, they are confident the research is robust. They note that, when Yelp.com computes a business's average rating (which ranges from 1 to 5 stars), it rounds off to the nearest half-star.
So, two restaurants that have similar average ratings can actually appear to be of very different quality to online viewers. For example, a restaurant with an average rating of 3.74 displays a 3.5-star average rating, while a restaurant with an average rating of 3.76 displays a 4-star average rating.
This, the economists claim, allows them to make important comparisons between restaurants that have different ratings – for example, 4 stars versus 3.5 stars – but are of nearly identical quality (for example, a 3.76 average versus a 3.74 average). Their conclusion? That half a star makes all the difference.
The economists write: "Differences in customer flows between such restaurants can therefore be attributed to the ratings themselves rather than differences in the quality of food or service."
The study collected reviews and daily reservation availability for 328 restaurants in San Francisco. It found that moving from 3 stars to 3.5 stars increased a restaurant's chance of selling out during prime dining times from 13% to 34%. Moving from 3.5 stars to 4 stars increased the chance of selling out during prime dining times by 19 percentage points.
The pair conclude that changes in consumer preferences "occur even though restaurant quality is held constant. This study demonstrates that these reviews have become a salient factor in consumer decisions."
Full research paper here

Amazon sold an estimated 5 million Kindle Fires in 9 months

"Last September I argued against the potential of the Kindle Fire acting as a low end disruption in the tablet market.
Now that the first version of the product has reached is end of life, it’s time to review the discussion.
The first problem is finding out how well the product did. Amazon just released a statement that the Fire accounted for 22% of tablet sales in the US in the nine months it was available. The challenge becomes knowing how many total tablets were sold in the US during this time frame.
Fortunately we know the vast bulk of that total based on the Samsung v. Apple trial. Both Apple and Samsung submitted as evidence sales of the iPad and the Tab product lines in the US. The iPad added up to 16.14 million units (Q4’11 through Q2’12) and the Tab was 540k units. That makes the iPad and the Tab add up to about 16.7 million units. Assuming an additional 1 million units for the other (non-Kindle) total yields an estimate of 22.7 million tablet devices sold in the nine months ending June.
Applying the 22% claim to that total gives a Kindle sales total of 4.987 million. That’s awfully close to a round number of 5 million.
Since Amazon admitted that they ended production prior to launching a replacement (and presumably did so quite early in order to drain inventory,) then we can safely assume that the original production order was 5 million units.
Five million Kindle Fire units becomes the first reliable estimate of Kindle sales (based on Apple, Samsung and Amazon supplied information rather than guesses from analysts.)"
Note - Kindle Fire has only ever gone on sale in the US

Countries with the greatest number of active iOS & Android devices



Click to enlarge

Source:  Blog post from Flurry, 27th August 2012
Note - Flurry calculate these figures by looking at app downloads

The rate of adoption of smartphones is faster than any other technology in history

"The rate of iOS and Android device adoption has surpassed that of any consumer technology in history.  Compared to recent technologies, smart device adoption is being adopted 10X faster than that of the 80s PC revolution, 2X faster than that of 90s Internet Boom and 3X faster than that of recent social network adoption.  Five years into the smart device growth curve, expansion of this new technology is rapidly expanding beyond early adopter markets such as such as North America and Western Europe, creating a true worldwide addressable market.  Overall, Flurry estimates that there were over 640 million iOS and Android devices in use during the month of July 2012."

More than 20% of American newspapers use a paywall of some sort

"More than a fifth of US newspapers restrict free access to their online content with a paywall, according to trade publication News&Tech;, double the number of a year ago. News&Tech; says that 290 papers across the country now charge consumers to some degree for access to their online content. According to the most recent stats from Pew, this is out of an approximate total of 1,400 US daily publications. The figures indicate that charging for premium content is proving a successful move for newspapers as they attempt to monetise their content online in reaction to readers shifting to the web."
Source:  Strategy Eye, 29th August 2012
Full list here