Two billion iPhone apps have been downloaded from the iTunes app store

""Apple today announced that more than two billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store, the largest applications store in the world. There are now more than 85,000 apps available to the more than 50 million iPhone™ and iPod touch® customers worldwide and over 125,000 developers in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program.
“The rate of App Store downloads continues to accelerate with users downloading a staggering two billion apps in just over a year, including more than half a billion apps this quarter alone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The App Store has reinvented what you can do with a mobile handheld device, and our users are clearly loving it.”"
Source: Apple press release, 28-9-09
Note - the first one billion downloads took nine months; the second took only five (24th April - 28th September)

Teens would rather save money by cutting back on clothes and accessories than console & PC games

"Shopping for clothes and accessories is the first thing that teens cut back on with 23%, followed by console and PC games (19%), food, sweets and beverages (16%), going to the movies (15%), online entertainment (13%) and music (9%). However, staying in is clearly not an appealing option to teens as only 33% say that they are in more in the evenings."
Source: Research by Habbo on 61,000 12-17 year olds across 30 counties, reported in a press release, 16th September 2009

24% of twitter users review or rate products

"Interpret surveyed over 9,200 internet users in August, finding that roughly 24 percent of the respondents that used Twitter, reviewed or rated products online; just 12 percent of people that used other social nets—but not Twitter—said the same. Twitter users were also more likely to visit company profiles (20 percent) than non-Twitter users (11 percent), and twice as likely to click on ads or sponsored links (20 percent vs. 9 percent).
The higher rates of engagement with brands could stem from a number of factors. First, people aren’t spending as much time doing activities (commenting on photos, chatting, playing games) on Twitter, so they could be more apt to click on an ad that would take them away from the site. In contrast, it’s been proven that most ads on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, fail to garner high click-throughs or other interactions, simply because users don’t want to have their experience interrupted."
Source: Interpret research, as reported by PaidContent, 24th September 2009

There are an estimated 400,000 'gold farmers', mainly based in China

"In basic terms, gold-farming [the production of virtual goods and services for players of online games] is a sizeable phenomenon. The rather wobbly-legged best guesses for 2008 are that 400,000 gold farmers earning an average US$145 per month produced a global market worth US$500m; but we could easily more than double the latter to over US$1bn. There are probably 5-10m consumers of gold farming services. The main uncertainty of estimation relates to the gold-farming market in East Asia, which appears much larger than that in the US/EU. That uncertainty in part arises because gold farming operates at four levels – local, national, regional and global. We should encompass all four but, to date, the focus has been almost entirely on the global trade."
Source: Page 66 of Current Analysis and Future Research Agenda on "Gold Farming":
Real-World Production in Developing Countries for the Virtual Economies of Online Games, by Richard Heeks, Development Informatics Group, IDPM, SED, University of Manchester, UK
2008, citing Wang, R. (2008) The Truth Behind Gold Farmers, WoWMine, Wilmington, DE
This excellent paper will tell you all you need to know about gold farming!

Habbo has 144 million registered users

Some stats about Habbo (August 2009):
"# 31 local communities
# Registered users: 144,000,000
# Unique visitors: 13,000,000 / month
# Page impressions: 990,000,000 / month
# Age distribution: 90 % between 13-18 years old
# Average visit: 43 minutes / session"
Source: Sulake.com, retrieved 26th September 2009

65% of online shoppers wait a day or more to complete their purchase

"Retailers should re-examine abandoned shopping cart rates. McAfee’s study found that 65% of all shoppers wait a day or more to complete a purchase, and the average delay is 33 hours and 54 minutes. Instead of panicking, e-tailers should understand the reasons for abandoned shopping carts and implement strategies to combat consumer fears.
“Retailers shouldn’t misinterpret abandoned shopping carts – many of these potential sales return later to finalize the sale,” said Keats. “Understanding this delay is critical for merchant analytics.”"
Source: McAfee, 17th September 2009

An estimated 247 billion emails are sent each day

"The number of worldwide email users is projected to increase from over 1.4 billion in 2009 to almost 1.9 billion by 2013. In 2009, 74% of all email accounts will belong to consumers, and 24% to corporate users.
Worldwide email traffic will total 247 billion messages per day in 2009. By 2013, this figure will almost double to 507 billion messages per day.
In 2009, about 81% of all email traffic is spam. According to our projections, a typical 1,000-user organization can spend upwards of $1.8 million a year to manage spam."
Source: Press release from The Radicati Group, 6th May 2009

EMI sold 2.25 million Beatles Remasters CDs in one week

"Underlining their timeless appeal and unique status in music, The Beatles have broken multiple chart records around the world following the 9 September 2009 (9-9-09) CD release of their digitally re-mastered catalogue. In the major music markets of North America, Japan and the UK, consumers purchased more than 2.25m copies of The Beatles' re-mastered albums, both individually and in two multiple-CD boxed sets, one in stereo and one in mono, during the first five days of release (excluding non-traditional retail outlets whose sales are not tracked by the chart compilers).
[...]
US: During the first five days of release, consumers purchased more than one million copies of re-mastered Beatles titles, and the individual albums and boxed sets debuted strongly across multiple Billboard charts. "
Source: EMI press release, 22nd September 2009

Twitter users tend to be older than other social media users

"Twitter users tend to be older than non-Twitter social media users (54% over 30 years old, vs. 42%), twice as likely to be self-employed or entrepreneurs (18% vs. 9%) and to be planning to start a business during the next six months, and more tech-savvy (24% vs. 15% "buy gadgets/devices when they first come out," 48% vs. 30% have created a website, and nearly four of ten (37%) currently maintain a blog, twice as many as non-Twitter social media users)."
Source: Crowdscience, 22nd September 2009
Other twitter stats also contained in the article

Total US ad spending fell by 14.3% in H1 2009, while internet display ad spending rose by 6.5%

"Total measured advertising expenditures in the first six months of 2009 fell 14.3 percent versus a year ago, to $60.87 billion, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The results are in line with similar measurements from Nielsen, which estimated that ad spending fell 15.4 percent for the first half of the year.
[...]
Ad Spending by Media
Internet display, up 6.5 percent, and free-standing inserts, up 4.6 percent, were the only media platforms to post growth during 1H09. Print, TV, radio and outdoor were all down. Cable was off 3.6 percent; spot was down 27.1 percent and Spanish-language TV dropped 12.7 percent.
Ad Spending by Category
Automotive remained the largest category, though it was down by nearly one-third. Auto advertisers spent $4.4 billion during 1H09 compared to $6.5 billion last year. Dealer spending was off more sharply than manufacturers. Through June, auto advertising is pacing at a level one-half its 2005 peak.
The ten largest advertising categories spent a total of $33.6 billion, down 14.5 percent from a year ago. Heightened competition among wireless phone companies and TV service providers boosted telecommunications category spending to $4.3 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent. Restaurants represented the only other gain among the top 10, up 0.6 percent to $2.9 billion."
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, reported by Television Broadcast, 17th September 2009

The US ringtone market is worth an estimated $750m in 2009, down from a peak of $880m in 2007

"The music ringtone market is within the decline stage of its short life cycle, according to industry research firm IBISWorld. The company forecasts industry revenue to decline for the second consecutive year - down 15 percent from its $880 million peak in 2007 - totalling just $750 million in 2009.
“Music ringtones practically boomed overnight, but with two consecutive years of decline it seems the industry is exiting just as rapidly as it entered,” said Toon van Beeck, senior analyst with IBISWorld. “And with the ringtone market already reaching its decline stage, its life cycle is only expected to last about 15 years.”"
Source: IBISWorld press release, 21st September 2009

Approximately 15% of Twitter traffic, 10% of MySpace traffic and 7% of Facebook traffic is porn spam

"About 15% of Twitter traffic, 10% of MySpace traffic and 7% of Facebook traffic is porn spam, according to security expert Alexandru Catalin Cosoi of BitDefender.
What's more, as porn spam rises on social sites, email-based porn spam has begun to drop.
Twitter, presently the "it" brand of social networks, currently suffers from a deluge of spam. Spammers register as users with provocative images, then follow mounds of other users and invite them to visit links to their sites."
Source: Research by BitDefender, reported by MarketingVox, 11th September 2009