Chinese eCommerce sales hit 3.6 trillion RMB (USD $530 billion) in 2009

""Qian Xiaoqian, deputy director of the State Council Information Office, said online shopping is become more and more popular in the nation as more people have started using the service.
"E-commerce sales volumes surged to 3.6 trillion yuan ($530 billion) last year," said Qian. He said the Internet industry is also changing from an entertainment-oriented approach to a more balanced structure offering diversified services.
China e-Business Research Center said in a recent report that the nation's e-commerce sales volume surged by 60 percent in the first half of the year to 2.25 trillion yuan. Business-to-business (B2B) transactions accounted for 2.05 trillion yuan, while business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sales volume was around 200 billion yuan.
"China's B2B market will continue to witness rapid growth in the next few years along with the nation's economic growth and rising e-commerce penetration," said the report, adding that online shopping was one of the few markets that was largely unaffected by the economic crisis.
There were 20,700 e-business websites in China as of June this year and more companies have started setting up online stores to cut costs and improve efficiency. The number of e-commerce websites is expected to reach 23,000 by the end of the year. More users are expected to use mobile e-commerce as it will gain ground soon, said the report.
Mobile e-commerce sales of real objects, like electronics, daily necessities and clothes, reached 1.3 billion yuan in the first half, and had nearly 55.3 million users."
Source:  Chinese State Council Information Office, reported by China Daily, 18th August 2010

35% of US Adults have apps on their phones; only 24% use the apps

"Some 35% of U.S. adults have software applications or “apps” on their phones, yet only 24% of adults use those apps. Many adults who have apps on their phones, particularly older adults, do not use them, and 11% of cell owners are not sure if their phone is equipped with apps.
Among cell phone owners, 29% have downloaded apps to their phone and 13% have paid to download apps.
“An apps culture is clearly emerging among some cell phone users, particularly men and young adults,” said Kristen Purcell, Associate Director for Research at the Pew Internet Project. “Still, it is clear that this is the early stage of adoption when many cell owners do not know what their phone can do. The apps market seems somewhat ahead of a majority of adult cell phone users.” "
Source:  The Rise of Apps Culture, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 14th September 2010

Justin Bieber reportedly uses up 3% of all twitter infrastructure

"Would you believe that Justin Bieber and his legion of fans use up 3% of Twitter’s server infrastructure at any given time — such a large amount of activity that “racks of servers” are dedicated to Bieber mania?
So said a Twitter employee, according to web designer and blogger Dustin Curtis. Yesterday he sent out the following tweet:
“At any moment, Justin Bieber uses 3% of our infrastructure. Racks of servers are dedicated to him. – A guy who works at Twitter”
[...]
We shot an e-mail Twitter’s way to confirm, and while the Twitter rep we contacted didn’t confirm the figure, she didn’t discourage us from believing it, either. “While we don’t break out metrics like this, everything around and about Justin Bieber is consistently popular on Twitter,” she said.
Curtis also tweeted that “most of the popular users on Twitter have dedicated servers for their accounts.” He believed the Twitter employee and tweeted what he said in part because he thinks the numbers make perfect sense:
“Every time Bieber tweets, his messages have to be delivered to more than five million people who then endlessly retweet it. Apparently, his account receives more than 60 @-replies per second for a while after he tweets, which is something Twitter wasn’t originally designed to handle.”"
Source:  Dustin Curtis, reported by Mashable, 7th September 2010
Note:  It's a fun fact, but it's totally unverified.

58% of social network users play at least one embedded game

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"[...] the latest stats on virtual worlds offer another huge incentive to experiment, perhaps with more tempered expectations.  The survey stats, from Lightspeed Research...
58% of social networkers play at least one embedded game (ie, FarmVille or Mafia Wars).
68% of those started playing within the last year.
29% are playing every day.
14% have spent money in a social game, in some fashion.
17% considered themselves "addicted" to an embedded game.
10% play more than two hours daily.
10% play more than 5 different social games.
And, perhaps most surprisingly: 55-64 year-olds are more active than 18-24 year-olds. "
Source:  Lightspeed Research, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 13th September 12010

There were 9,200 tweets per minute about Lady Gaga during MTV's 2010 VMA ceremony

"Sunday's Video Music Awards became an interactive experience unlike any before it as fans took to Twitter and sent approximately 2.3 million tweets during the East and West Coast runs of the show. Not surprisingly, the woman who swept the awards show was the most talked-about celebrity on Twitter: Lady Gaga was the subject of more than 9,200 tweets per minute, which was more than half of the total tweets being sent about all of the artists being tracked by MTV's Twitter Tracker.
[...]
This year's show also saw a significant increase in the tweet volume of last year's VMAs, which is impressive considering Sunday's show didn't have as controversial a surprise moment as Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift's acceptance speech last year. The show also marked a big increase from when the Twitter Tracker was used at the MTV Movie Awards earlier this year. There, the most discussed moment of the night — Tom Cruise and Jennifer Lopez's dance onstage — only clocked in at 1,800 tweets per minute.
Overall, the artists tracked generated an average of 15,000 tweets per minute. Following Lady Gaga in popularity were Cher with an average 7,100 tweets per minute, Eminem with 5,000 tweets per minute, and Rihanna with 4,700 tweets per minute. Rounding out the top 10 were Ke$ha, Paramore, Taylor Swift and Kanye West."
Source:  News item on MTV.com, 13th September 2010

The Plants Vs. Zombies iPhone game generated $1m in the first 9 days

"PopCap, which also makes "Bejeweled," said PvZ is the fastest-selling game in the company's history, with totals "in the millions of units" across all platforms. PopCap was mum on specific sales figures, but did disclose that when the PvZ iPhone app debuted in February, it sold 300,000 copies to rake in $1 million in just nine days, setting an App Store record at the time. Last week, the game was still No. 20 in the iPhone App Store. The iPad PvZ app was, and still is, featured on iPad demo units in all 300 of Apple's retail stores, said PopCap VP-Marketing Ben Rotholtz."
Source:  AdAge, 6th September 2010

More than one million people joined Ping, Apple's music-based social network, in less than 48 hours

"Apple® today announced that in less than 48 hours since its launch on Wednesday, more than one million users have joined Ping, its new social network for music which lets users follow their favorite artists and friends to discover what music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading.
“One-third of the people who have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping,“ said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “As many more people download iTunes 10 in the coming weeks, we expect the Ping community to continue growing.“"
Source:  Apple press release, 3rd September 2010

Groupon's promotion with Gap generated $11m in revenue

"[The] success story belongs to Groupon whose national promotion for Gap last week resulted in income of $11 million from sales of a $25 coupon worth $50 of store merchandise to over 440,000 shoppers, according to AdAge. While Gap has yet to see how many coupons are actually redeemed, Rob Solomon, Groupon’s president said,
“I’m pretty sure if they ran a national TV campaign, they wouldn’t have gotten nearly 500,000 paying buyers in the store.”
Less than two years old Groupon began as a locally-oriented service offering a “deal a day” to subscribers in particular cities who give Groupon their email addresses. The twist is that an offer is only redeemable if enough people express interest in it. With redemption rates exceeding 80 percent on average, Groupon’s growth is easy to understand since it often splits the value of the offer as part of its revenue."
Source:  Rob Solomon of Gap, reported by AdAge and ReveNews, 26th August 2010

Age and gender of the internet users in China

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"At present, the proportion of male to female among net citizens in China is 54.8：45.2. The percentage of male net citizens is nearly 10% larger than the female and thepopularization of internet for female is relatively low."

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"The age structure of net citizens continues to develop towards maturity. The proportion of net citizens at the age of 30 or above has increased from 38.6% in the end of 2009 to 41% in 2010 in general. It is mainly because the threshold of internet is lowered and the focus of network penetration has been transited from low aged groups to high and middle aged groups."
Source:  Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, July 2010, CNNIC, Translated August 2010

277m people in China access the internet through a mobile device

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"The number of mobile net citizens in China has reached 277 million. The number of newly added mobile net citizens in the first half year of 2010 was 43,340,000, with an increase of 18.6%. The ones who surf the internet only using mobile have increased to 11.7% of the overall net citizens."
Source:  Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, July 2010, CNNIC, Translated August 2010

There are 420m people online in China (updated)

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"Up to June, 2010, the number of net citizens in China has reached 420 million, exceeding the point of 400 million, with an increase of 36 million compared to the end of 2009. The popularity rate of internet has climbed up to 31.8%, with an increase of 2.9% compared to the end of 2009.
The number of broadband net citizens has reached 363,810,000, and the popularity rate of broadband for users who surf the internet using computer has arrived at 98.1%."
Source:  Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, July 2010, CNNIC, Translated August 2010

450m episodes of TV shows have been downloaded from iTunes

"275 million iPods now sold.
More than 11.7 billion songs downloaded from the iTunes Store.
Plus: 450 million TV episodes, 35 million books, 100 million movies."
Source:  Steve Jobs, talking on 1st September 2010, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 1st September 2010