Baidu's Q1 2010 profits rose 167% Y-o-Y

"Total revenues in the first quarter of 2010 were RMB1.294 billion ($189.6 million), a 59.6% increase from the corresponding period in 2009.
Operating profit in the first quarter of 2010 was RMB530.8 million ($77.8 million), a 167.4% increase from the corresponding period in 2009.
Net income in the first quarter of 2010 was RMB480.5 million ($70.4 million), a 165.3% increase from the corresponding period in 2009. Diluted earnings per share ("EPS") for the first quarter of 2010 was RMB13.77 ($2.02); diluted EPS excluding share-based compensation expenses (non-GAAP) for the first quarter of 2010 was RMB14.33 ($2.10)."
Source: Baidu press release, 28th April 2010

Music streaming site we7 pays between £2,000 and £4,000 to the music industry per 1m song plays

"In comments to Digital Music News, we7 chief executive Steve Purdham clarified that ads are now covering royalties (both recording and publishing) and bandwidth costs, but not broader operational costs. The rest of the P&L is on its own.
Purdham also colored an earlier figure. Specifically, the company calculated that one million song plays now translate into "payments to the music industry" of between "2,000 to 4,000" pounds, or roughly $3,000 to $6,000. That is based on per-play rates, not "miniscule or non-existent revenue share" arrangements, and the payouts run the gamut of "unsigned" to "major label"."
Source: Digital Music News, 28th April 2010

50,000 websites implemented Facebook social plugins in the first week

"At f8, we also launched new tools called social plugins — including the Like button, Activity Feed, and Recommendations — on more than 75 websites. Already, just one week since launch, more than 50,000 sites across the Web have implemented the new plugins. We are thrilled by the strong adoption so far as developers realize how easy social plugins are to use and how powerful they are in engaging users in a frictionless experience without requiring them to share any personal information."
Source: Facebook blog, 28th April 2010

240m Chinese internet users watch videos online

"According to its annual 2009 research report on online video applications in China, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced today that as of the end of 2009, online video users in China reached 240 mln.
According to the report, 66.8% of respondents reported time spent watching television had decreased, with 23.7% of those users stating they basically no longer watch television programs on TV. 56.7% of respondents said they are more dependent on the Internet than TV.
Films and television programs were the most commonly named content when respondents were asked what their favorite type of content was, garnering 77% and 70.5% of users respectively.
71.6% of respondents said they used regular search engines to find video content; 53.9% of respondents found content through word of mouth or SNS websites, while 43.8% used on-deck search on specific online video websites.
Over 98% of respondents said they used broadband connections to watch online videos, while only 0.9% said they used narrowband connections.
47.9% of respondents watched online video content every day.
62.9% of respondents reported that advertising on online video services is acceptable."
Source: Online video report from the CNNIC, reported by Marbridge Consulting, 7th April 2010

More young Chinese go online through mobile phones than desktop computers

"The report found that China's Internet penetration rate has reached 54.5 percent among young people, much higher than the national average of 28.9 percent among the country’s total population. In addition, the number of young Chinese netizens increased by 28 million in 2009.
Mobile netizens constitute the majority of the newly-added young Internet users. The number of young mobile Internet users rose 73.5 percent to 144 million from the end of 2008 to 2009, accounting for 74 percent of the total young netizen population, above the national average of around 61 percent. The proportion of young people who surf the Internet via their desktops dropped to about 70 percent, indicating that mobile phones have overtaken desktops for the first time as the first choice for young Chinese Internet users to access the Internet."
Source: CNNIC "2009 Report on the Behavior of China's Young Internet Users", reported by People's Daily, 27th April 2010
Note - Young Chinese are defined as age 6 to 25.

There are 195m internet users under the age of 25 in China

"The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued its "2009 Report on the Behavior of China's Young Internet Users" in Beijing today, showing that as of the end of 2009, China had reached a total of 195 mln young internet users, up 16.8% from the previous year, accounting for 50.7% of all internet users in China. Internet penetration among youth reached 54.5%, and 74% of all young internet users accessed the internet via mobile phone, up 24.3% from the previous year.
Young internet users spent a weekly average of 16.5 hours online, 1.9 hours longer than in 2008.
Most marked was young internet users' use of entertainment services, with usage of online music (88.1%), online video (67%), online literature (47.1%) and online gaming (77.2%) all higher than that of overall internet users. Young internet users also used online communication tools at higher rates than overall internet users, including blogs (68.8%), instant messaging (77%), social networking sites (50.9%) and BBS (31.7%). 73.9% of young Chinese internet users used search engines. In general, young Chinese internet users were less active on commerce-related internet applications, with online shopping and payment used by 26.5% and 22.9% of users, respectively.
85.7% of university students and 69.3% of middle- and high-school students who went online did so via mobile phone. Overall, young internet users were relatively active in usage of most mobile internet applications: 87.3% of young mobile internet users used online chat services, 60.8% used mobile search, and 54.5% used mobile music.
CNNIC defines internet users as Chinese nationals over the age of 6 who have used the internet within the past half year. Young internet users refers to those under the age of 25."
Source - CNNIC "2009 Report on the Behavior of China's Young Internet Users", reported by Marbridge Consulting, 26th April 2010

Amazon makes less than half its revenues from books, music and DVDs

"In its first quarter earnings report on Thursday, in which it announced an expectations-busting 46 percent increase in revenues over the year before and a 68 percent increase in profit, Amazon said its worldwide media sales grew 26 percent to $3.43 billion. For the first time, that total is less than its worldwide sales of electronics and other general merchandise, which grew 72 percent to $3.51 billion.
This long-expected inversion point is significant for Amazon. It also gives the company some insulation from the unpredictable shifts in the media business, in which it faces tech heavyweights like Apple and Google in growing markets like digital music and e-books."
Source: Amazon Q1 Earnings, reported by The New York Times, 22nd April 2010

Android's mobile web traffic overtook Apple's mobile web traffic in the US in March 2010

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"According to the report, Android traffic in the U.S. increased to 46 percent of operating system share compared to 39 percent for the iPhone operating system. Worldwide, the iPhone OS still took the top spot, taking 46 percent of the OS share, with Android phones seeing 25 percent of impressions. AdMob measures mobile ad impressions, which is a proxy for overall traffic."
Source: AdMob's March 2010 Mobile Metrics Report, reported by Techcrunch, 27th April 2010

11 mobile devices make up 96% of Android mobile ad requests, up from 2 devices 7 months ago

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"Only seven months ago, the HTC Dream and HTC Magic collectively represented 96% of Android traffic. In March 2010, 11 devices represented 96% of Android traffic in the AdMob network. The chart above illustrates the impact of new handsets."
Source: March 2010 Mobile Metrics Report, AdMob, 27th April 2010
More data from the pdf of the report -
"The Motorola Droid was the leading Android handset in March 2010 and generated 32% of worldwide Android traffic. The Google Nexus One only generated 2% of Android traffic in March 2010.
The top Android devices vary by country. The top three devices in the US were the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream and Motorola CLIQ. In comparison, the top three Android devices in the UK were the HTC Hero, HTC Dream and HTC Magic"
See the pdf here

Craigslist makes revenues of $3.3m per employee

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Data from 37Signals, 21st April 2010

Social networking activity comprises more than half the time spent on the mobile internet in the US

"Social networking activity comprises more than half of the time spent on the Mobile Internet, reports survey from Ground Truth. The report also noted that users of mobile-specific social networks are more engaged than users of PC-based social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace, on mobile.
"While the popularity of mobile social networking is widely believed, this is the first time we have been able to truly quantify just how much the category is driving adoption of the Mobile Internet with actual usage metrics," said Evan Neufeld, vice president of marketing, Ground Truth. "The disparity of time spent between social networking and the next category, portals, which account for 59.83 and 13.65 percent of time spent respectively, is a vivid illustration of the impact social networking has on Mobile Internet traffic in a given week."
Beyond sheer usage trends in social networking, data for the week ending April 4 indicates that mobile-centric social networking sites such as MocoSpace and AirG are better at engaging consumer than are with PC heavyweights like Facebook and MySpace."
Source: Ground Truth, reported in Cellular News, April 2010

Foursquare has one million users

"Foursquare Labs Inc., the location- based Web service that reached 1 million users this week, will decide whether to sell itself or raise more venture capital within weeks, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Crowley said.
[...]
The 20-employee company offers free advertising, for now, to small shops and restaurants, while generating revenue from selling ads to chain businesses, Crowley said. Ultimately, it plans to offer targeted advertising for local businesses, by crunching data about where users check in to guess what kinds of offers they want to see, he said.
The company is rolling out new features, including a self- service platform to let small businesses create Foursquare ads, and may begin services to introduce users to each other, Crowley said. The number of users is growing 50 percent a month and is on pace to reach 3 million by the end of the summer, he said."
Source: Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, interviewed in Bloomberg, 23rd April 2010
Earlier - 500,000 reported on 11th March