Gangnam Style by Psy is the first video to hit one billion views on YouTube

"A million views? You know what's cool? A billion views.
Today, a 34-year-old K-Pop artist made online video history when his viral video, Gangnam Style, smashed our records and became the first video ever to reach one billion views. Yup, that’s right one BILLION views!
PSY's success is a great testament to the universal appeal of catchy music-- and er, great equine dance moves. In the past, music distribution was mostly regional. It was more difficult to learn about great artists from around the world. But with a global platform at their fingertips, people are now discovering and sharing amazing music from all over the planet, by artists like Brazilian Michel Teló and Belgian-Australian Gotye.
One billion views is an incredible number, but the PSY-nomenon goes beyond that. Check out these stats:
PSY was already big in Korea, but in 2012, he became a global celeb as Gangnam Style quickly spread from Seoul and the pacific to North America, South America, and Europe. It’s been seen at least 1 million times in close to 75 countries, making it one of the most global music sensations ever!
From a one-thousand person flash mob in Jakarta to cover videos from Ai Weiwei and Mitt Romney, hundreds of thousands of parodies have been uploaded to YouTube, some of which have tens of millions of views. In fact, fan tributes to Gangnam Style are now being viewed 20 million times every single day.
PSY's own remix with Hyuna has 200 million views alone.
"Gangnam Style" was YouTube's top rising search of 2012 and on October 6th, we saw more than five million searches for “gangnam style” in a single day. Check out this video demonstrating some of our most popular YouTube searches this year.
For those interested in the business side: a number of assessments and projections have been posted claiming “Gangnam Style” has generated over $8.1 million in advertising deals, hit more than 2.9 million in song downloads since July, and achieved other incredible feats!
Since late last month, people have clicked to buy the track on iTunes over 600,000 times helping make PSY the first Korean artist ever to rank #1 on the U.S. iTunes chart and #1 in over 30 more countries.
Perhaps what’s most impressive about this feat is that it took just over five months to happen."

Source:  YouTube blog, 21st December 2012
Earlier - It became the most viewed video of all time in late November
Earlier - 100 million views in the first 50 days (5th September)

Percent of internet users who access via mobile devices

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in September 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Note - This is based on 'generally' accessing the internet, so not 'ever' or 'in the last month' but 'regularly' 

Mobile & tablets as a percent of all internet access in 2012

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Source:  comScore data, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Take up of connected TVs and 3D TVs in 2012

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in October 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Take up of DVRs in 2012

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in October 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Take up of HDTV in 2012

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in October 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Media activities done regularly in 2012

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in September 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Ownership & personal use of media devices in 2012

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Source:  Research by Ofcom, conducted in September 2012, reported in The Ofcom International Communications Report, December 2012

Online ad revenue rose to $9.26 billion in the US in Q3 2012

"Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. reached $9.26 billion for the third quarter of 2012, making the quarter the biggest on record, according to the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC US. These figures show an 18 percent climb year-over-year, in comparison to Q3 2011’s $7.8 billion. In addition, they mark a 6 percent increase over the Q2 2012 figures of $8.72 billion."

Source:  Press release from the IAB, 19th December 2012

Google receives 2.5 million copyright removal requests per week

"As policymakers evaluate how effective copyright laws are, they need to consider the collateral impact copyright regulation has on the flow of information online. When we launched the copyright removals feature, we received more than 250,000 requests per week. That number has increased tenfold in just six months to more than 2.5 million requests per week today. While we’re now receiving and processing more requests more quickly than ever (on average, within approximately six hours), we still do our best to catch errors or abuse so we don’t mistakenly disable access to non-infringing material."

Source:  Google Policy Blog, 11th December 2012

See the regularly updated chart here

Twitter stats from the final of The X-Factor 2012

"While the viewing figures for yesterday’s X Factor final were down compared to 2011 the use of Twitter throughout this year’s series has increased significantly. Here are a few Twitter facts and figures about this year’s X Factor UK:
There were 1,126,802 tweets about the show during the final.
The Tweets per minute peaked at 28,377 during the final show.
It is estimated that there have been more than 14 million tweets about the show this year.
#XFactor has been used over 3.5 million times since the start of the 2012 series.
Over the course of the series #Jahmene/@JahmeneDouglas has been used 769,220 times.
Over the course of the series #JamesArthur/@JamesArthur23 has been used 2,066,318 times.
#Rylan/Rylan/@RylanClark has been used a total of 3,576,431 times during this year’s series compared to being used 38,306 times in the same time period just before the start of the series.
The biggest peak in tweets per minute was 49,000 when the two favourites James Arthur and Ella Henderson were in the bottom two.
Gary Barlow’s remark about Tulisa’s “fag ash breath” was mentioned nearly 45,000 times on Twitter on the day of that episode.
James Arthur (@JamesArthur23) now has 1,122,209 followers on Twitter.
Jahmene Douglas (@JahmeneDouglas) now has 481,943 followers on Twitter.
Rylan (@RylanClark) now has 489,918 followers on Twitter."
Source:  Stats collated by Carat UK, reported in their blog, 10th December 2012
See also - Tweets per minute during the X-Factor Final 2012

The two most retweeted tweets of 2012

"Here are the top two Tweets that generated the most Retweets for the year, plus honorable mentions for a few other Tweets that caught attention around the world.
Barack Obama  @BarackObama
“Four more years”
6th Nov 12 - 810,000+ Retweets, 300,000+ Favorites
Justin Bieber  @justinbieber
“RIP Avalanna. i love you”
26th Sep 12 - 220,000+ Retweets, 100,000+ Favorites
Team GB  @TeamGB
“29 gold, 17 silver, 19 bronze - We finished 3rd in medal table after most successful Olympics for 104 years #OurGreatestTeam RT your support”
12th Aug 12 - 67,000+ Retweets  5,000+ Favorites
TJ Lang  @TJLang70
“Fuck it NFL.. Fine me and use the money to pay the regular refs.” (Most re-tweeted NFL post)
24th Sep 12 - 98,000+ Retweets, 28,000+ Favorites
@yamachanoha
“…I would like to announce here: I, Koichi Yamadera, have married Ms. Rie Tanaka … I am really happy to have met such a great partner and have our lives come together. We made up our minds to respect each other, help each other and build a home full of smiles…” (Translated from Japanese - this was the most retweeted post in Japan)
17th Jun 12 - 68,000 Retweets, 6,000 Favorites"
Source:  Twitter's review of 2012, December 2012