Using a mix of public transport and Uber can be cheaper than owning a car

"Consider a household that makes about 2,000 vehicle trips per year, in line with the national average. (If that sounds like a lot of trips, remember the figure is per household and not per person.) It can either spend $10,000 a year on car ownership,14 or it can use a combination of public transit (at a cost of $2.50 per journey15) plus Uber and taxis.
If the household can make all its trips by public transit, then that’s by far the cheapest option. But suppose it cannot. How many Uber rides can it afford to take before owning a car becomes cheaper?
If Uber costs about $20 per ride — about what an UberX costs now for a 5-mile ride in New York in moderate traffic — then the household can make up to about 15 percent of its trips by Uber and the combination of Uber and public transit will remain cheaper than owning a car. On the one hand, that figure implies that the household still needs excellent access to public transit since it must make 85 percent of its journeys that way. On the other hand, 15 percent of 2,000 trips is still 300 Uber rides per year."
Source:  FiveThirtyEight, 28th August 2015

UK Internet users spend nearly 3 hours a day online; mobile & tablets account for 56%

"IAB & UKOM publish “definitive” time people spend online - 2hrs 51 mins a day. Aims to clear up confusion around online media consumption figures. Mobiles and tablets account for over half (56%) of internet time.
The Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) and UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) today published a definitive figure on how long people actively spend online each day, to bring clarity to the market by removing any confusion around the conflicting sources claiming to measure time online.
UKOM, the official cross-industry standards body that measures online audiences using approved comScore data, revealed that the average Briton online spent 2 hours 51 minutes per day actively using the internet at home and work (during the first six months of 2015).
Internet time is split 1 hour 16 minutes (45%) on PCs/laptops, 1 hour 9 minutes on smartphones (40%) and 26 minutes on tablets (15%).
“There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to the various sources claiming to measure how long people spend on different media,” said the IAB’s Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Elkington. “So, we wanted to put a stake in the ground for internet time to remove this misconception and help advertisers understand how much time they realistically have to play with to reach people online. It equates to about 1 in every 6 waking minutes¹.”
The data comes from a combination of meters measuring the behaviour of 73,000 people (a panel) plus thousands of sites and apps being tagged (site analytics).
The resulting figures purely measure “active attention”, that is, only the time people are actively using the internet to do something. Elkington explains: “If I’m surfing the internet on my PC but then start using a word document, the internet time is stopped even though the web page is still open. A similar approach is applied on mobile when internet activity is interrupted due to calls or texting.”
Social media overtakes entertainment in share of online time
The UKOM/comScore data reveals that 16.7% of all UK internet time (1 in every 6 minutes) across computers, tablets and smartphones is spent on social media – up from 12% two years ago. Social media has overtaken entertainment, whose share nearly halved from 22.1% to 12.4%.
Games follows next at 6% share – double that of two years ago (3%). Together, these activities account for over one third of Britons’ time online.
Share of time differs dramatically by device
Social media accounts for over double the share of mobile/tablet internet time (21.4%) than it does of desktop internet time (9.8%). Games (8.6% vs 2.3%), Instant Messaging (6.7% vs 0.8%) and News (4.8% vs 2.2%) also take up a much larger proportion of mobile internet time than desktop time. In contrast, entertainment accounts for over double the share of desktop internet time (18.5%) than it does on mobile/tablet (8.3%); for email, it’s over six times the share (5.0% vs 0.8%).
“When trying to reach consumers, advertisers can’t afford to think of time online as a homogenous entity,” said UKOM’s General Manager Scott Fleming. “Mobile internet time is more heavily skewed towards social networking and games whilst desktop is more loaded towards email and entertainment such as film and multimedia. “The most effective digital ad strategies recognise and take into account how behaviour and mind-set differ dramatically by device.”"

Source:  Press release from IAB UK, published 2nd September 2015

A summary of UK boys’ and girls’ gaming habits and preferences

"Boys
Core focus on game consoles because they are immersive
It’s all about completing the game and being the best
Tablets skew young or are more for casual gaming; they could be used to complement console games or promote conversation
YouTube is important for knowledge, discovery, and passing on skills—and should be embraced!
Girls
Gaming peaks at age 9-10, then migrates to smartphones in secondary school—social or puzzle games appeal the most
Don’t stereotype—racing and platform games are popular
Be inclusive
Mobile has opened up the market to girls – embrace the opportunity with this audience!"

Source:  Research by Nickelodeon UK, published in Viacom's International Insights, 26th August 2015

40% of comments on Instagram mention another user

"Why is Instagram ramping up messaging? Brina Lee, a software engineer for the app, told that it's in part because 40% of comments on Instagram posts are @mentions which name-check another member, showing that users already like to bring cool photos and videos to each others' attention. The new features will help them do so in a more efficient manner."
Source:  Fast Company, 1st September 2015

21.4m tweets were sent about the 2015 VMAs in the US

"In the United States alone, 21.4 million tweets were sent about the ceremony by 2.2 million individuals. In turn, 11.8 million people received those tweets, which resulted in the VMA tweets themselves potentially being seen 676 million times. This is a significant increase over last year's social media effect, when just 12.6 million tweets were sent.
Also, not surprising, the minute after West's presidential aspirations were announced, Twitter exploded. More than 247,500 tweets were sent at roughly 10:49 p.m. Eastern.
Sources were unclear as to how many of those tweets contained the identical joke, "West/Minaj 2020.""
Source:  LA Times, 31st August 2015

Mobile-only audience of UK news outlets as percentage of total UK audience

Source:  NRS, quoted in Journalism.co.uk, 26th August 2015

8 companies from the Y Combinator accelerator programme are now worth more than $1bn

"Total "valuation" of all YC companies: >$65 billion
Total money raised by all YC companies: >$7 billion
Number of YC companies worth more than $1 billion: 8 [1]
Number of YC companies worth more than $100 million: >40
Number of companies funded by YC so far: ~940
Number of companies funded by YC that have dissolved: 177
Number of companies in the last batch: 107
Number of hardware + biotech + healthcare companies in the last batch: 32
Number of companies we offered to fund yesterday for the first YC Fellowship: 33
[1] This includes Twitch, which Amazon bought for ~970MM plus an earn-out."

Source:  Blog post from y Combinator, 26th August 2015

450 million people use Facebook Events

"In the latest Facebook earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook Events now has 450 million users, a big jump in numbers that he says is now of "global scale." Of course, any Facebook user can tell you that this momentum with Events has been building for a while now. After all, why use sites like Evite and Eventbrite to organize parties if you can do so on a site that your friends and family likely already use? But the company isn't stopping there. In the coming weeks and months, Facebook is about to add even more features to Events, with a big push toward creating a bigger separation between public and private occasions."
Source:  Engadget, 17th August 2015
Note - I'm assuming the 450m is monthly active users
MAUs

A Digital Snapshot of India

Digital, Social & Mobile in India in 2015 from We Are Social Singapore

90% of time American smartphone owners spend on mobile is in apps

(So Facebook is twice as big as the web...)
Source:  Flurry, 26th August 2015
Earlier - 86% of time spent is in apps, reported in April 2014

One billion people used Facebook on Monday 24th August

"We just passed an important milestone. For the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day.
On Monday, 1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their friends and family.
When we talk about our financials, we use average numbers, but this is different. This was the first time we reached this milestone, and it's just the beginning of connecting the whole world.
I'm so proud of our community for the progress we've made. Our community stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world.
A more open and connected world is a better world. It brings stronger relationships with those you love, a stronger economy with more opportunities, and a stronger society that reflects all of our values.
Thank you for being part of our community and for everything you've done to help us reach this milestone. I’m looking forward to seeing what we accomplish together."
Source:  Facebook post by Mark Zuckerberg, 27th August 2015

Nearly 70% of people opposed to the BBC licence fee changed their minds after being deprived of the service

"More than two-thirds of those originally opposed to paying the £145.50 licence fee changed their minds after being cut off from BBC services for a nine-day period, according to a study commissioned by the corporation.
Seventy families across the country agreed to have their access to the BBC’s television, radio and online services suspended, as part of a “deprivation study” designed to test the reactions of those who said they would prefer not to pay the licence fee.
Of the seventy households, 48 had initially said that they would prefer either to pay no licence fee and have no BBC access, or pay a reduced licence fee. After nine days without any access to the corporation, however, 33 of the 48 families, or 69 per cent, declared that they were now happy to pay.
Mike O’Donnell, a retired sales manager, and his wife, Pat, were among the families who were initially opposed to paying for the BBC. “I just thought the licence fee was another tax, and not good value for money,” said Mr O’Donnell, who admits to being a fan of EastEnders and 5 Live. “But being without the BBC was absolutely dreadful, just awful. I just didn’t realised how much we watched it.”
Many of those who took part in the trial said that they became frustrated by having to watch adverts on commercial TV channels, and the O’Donnells were no different. “The adverts just drove me nuts,” said Mr O’Donnell. “I lost track of what I was watching.”
A perceived lack of quality from the BBC’s rivals was also a common complaint. Mr O’Donnell said: “The weather on ITV is Mickey Mouse. You can tell that the person who’s reading it doesn’t understand it. Whereas when you watch it on the BBC they clearly know what they’re talking about and put the script together from the research they’ve done. It’s quite a profound difference. I now think the BBC is incredibly good value. I’d probably willingly pay even more. I’m actually quite a good ambassador for the BBC now.”
The BBC commissioned the study to dig deeper into existing research that suggests that around 30 per cent of people are opposed to paying the licence fee. It would appear to confirm suspicions held at a high level in the corporation that many viewers do not realise how much they depend on the broadcaster’s output."

Source:  Radio Times, 25th August 2015