Mobile represents 'just under 40%' of The Guardian's news traffic

Mobile growing to represent just under 40% of our traffic now @guardiannews #quickerthanexpected
— BradleyDowdingYoung (@bradleyisyoung) September 14, 2012

Note - Bradley describes himself as "Mobile dude at the @guardian - Loves Art, Music and Innovation."

'Return fraud' cost US retailers $14.4bn in 2011

"TIMES may be tough, but women still need little black dresses to wear to posh parties. So some buy a fancy frock, dance the night away in it and then return it to the store, pretending that it does not fit. To ensure a refund, they may even unpick a seam and complain that the garment is faulty. This is an example of a growing problem. Retailers call it “de-shopping”.
Return fraud, which also includes such things as selling shoplifted goods back to the store from which they were pinched, is becoming more widespread. It cost American retailers $14.4 billion in 2011, according to the National Retail Federation, up from $9.4 billion in 2009. The worst offenders are women returning clothes.
Online stores are particularly vulnerable. Few people will risk buying something to wear without trying it on first, so cyber-retailers need to have generous returns policies. But other scams are gaining popularity, too. Electrical retailers say that some sports fans now “borrow” large high-definition televisions to watch big matches."

Source:  The Economist, 3rd May 2012

Note - Not strictly digital, but fascinating stats & facts

Apps 'are now an integral part of British family life'

"More than 1/3 of British parents [with app-enabled devices] now see apps as integral to family life
New research out today from Disney UK reveals that in just four years since the first app was downloaded, Britain has become a nation of ‘Appy Families.  75% of parents with app-enabled devices share them with their kids and more than one third of parents already consider apps to be an ‘integral part’ of family life.
Disney surveyed 2,000 UK parents who own an app enabled device and found that despite the wealth of free apps, 49% of parents are ‘appy to spend money on apps each month. Even with the tough economic environment, the research shows two in five parents spend up to £10 each month, which means UK families could be spending as much as an estimated £132 million a year.
The findings also reveal that more than half of parents questioned have downloaded an app at the request of their child (or children).  Once downloaded, it’s the kids who instantly understand the technology and functionality, with 56% of parents having had their child teach them, or another family member, what to do. There is no age gap to getting ‘appy either with 38% of children having shown their grandparents how to use apps.
It’s not just the older kids getting ‘appy, with almost half of parents, who have one child aged five or under, saying their little one uses at least one app-enabled device.  31% say their young child has taught another family member how to use an app, particularly a grandparent (62%)."

Source:  Baby London, September 2012

Instagram has more than 100 million users

"At the TechCrunch Disrupt event in San Francisco today, Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg told Michael Arrington of CrunchFund one major new figure: Instagram has passed 100 million users. “[Instagram] just crossed 100 million users,” Zuckerberg said. “They’re killing it.”"
Source:  The Next Web, 11th September 2012
Earlier - 80m announced on 26th July

There are more than one billion search queries on Facebook each day

"It’s no secret that Facebook is trying to get the most bang for its buck from its search bar. Companies are throwing money at Facebook trying to leapfrog competitors via sponsored results. Zuckerberg said the company is intrigued by what it can do with search, noting that there are more than 1 billion queries through the social network each day. He wants the search engine within Facebook to aid users who want to know things such as which restaurants nearby their friends have favorably reviewed and who has worked at a company they may be applying to."
Source:  AllFacebook, 11th September 2012

235 million people are playing games on Facebook each month

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says 235 million people are playing games on Facebook each month — proving the platform is a new home for gamers.
Zuckerberg made the remarks at TechCrunch Disrupt Tuesday afternoon, during a live interview with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington.
Zuckerberg made his point about gaming after talking about what things he was excited about on the Facebook platform. He mentioned that Zynga, who has been struggling lately with falling stock prices and departing executives, was losing market share on the platform, but that other game companies had risen to take its place.
In particular, Zuckerberg mentioned two rising stars by name — Kixeye and King.com."

Source:  Mashable, 11th September 2012

19 million drivers are covered by 'black box' car insurance

"Google recently announced huge steps forward with their self-driving cars, and while we may not have reached the future automobiles envisioned in films such as Minority Report, we can see some of that technology on the horizon. With more than 30 vehicle manufacturers launching telematics services in the US, China, and Europe; over 19 million drivers covered by telematics-impacted insurance policies; and over 15% of all new passenger cars in Europe being smart-key fitted, some parts of the future are already here."

Source:  Press release from Global Information Inc, 11th September 2012

Nearly 16m bets were placed on Betfair via mobile phones in Q2 2012

"The Euro 2012 football championships helped Betfair post a jump in sales, with soaring numbers of people using mobile phones to place bets.
The online gaming group saw revenues up 13% to £91.6m in the three months to 31 July. UK growth was up 23%.
The number of bets using mobile phones rose 114%, while revenues generated were up 98%, a trading update revealed.
[...]
The number of bets using mobile phones increased by 114% to 15.8 million, with revenue up 98% to £8.2m during the quarter."

Source:  BBC News, 10th September 2012

An average of 117 searches per searcher were made in June 2012

"Evaluating search growth centers around two primary metrics:
Number of Searchers
Total Searches Conducted
From these numbers, we can then derive a variety of consumption metrics such as Searches per Searcher and Searcher Conversion. For this analysis, I used comScore qSearch, which is based on a two million desktop/PC based searcher panel covering more than 170 countries.
In June 2012, 1.47 billion searchers conducted 173 billion searches (with year-over-year increases of 10% and 12%, respectively), making for 117 searches for every searcher on the planet. If you were to add in the number of searches now performed on mobile devices and tablets, the numbers would be even more staggering. Social Media may get most of the news clippings lately, but search activity is still one of the most popular activities on the Internet.
Search is a relatively mature online activity that will not continue to experience double digit growth in new searchers forever, so the ongoing growth opportunity would appear to be in the number of searches each person conducts. But 117 searches per searcher worldwide already seems like a lot, doesn’t it? However, when you break this number down by different regions and countries, you begin to get a better sense of where the search growth will come from in succeeding years.
While Europe and Asia Pac have the highest number of searchers and generate the highest overall volume of search queries, the search utilization by region shows a different story with Latin America taking the gold:
Latin America: 162
Europe: 135
North America: 129
Asia Pacific: 97
Middle East-Africa: 92"

Source:  Press release from comScore, 5th September 2012

Note - Desktop searches only

Gopher protocol, an early alternative to HTTP & the World Wide Web, stagnated because its developers charged a licencing fee

"As I pick up my pita bread, I observe that his 1989 proposal for the universal linked information system that became the web reads more like an attempt to solve nitty-gritty organisational problems than a utopian dream of social change. At Cern, he was struggling to collaborate with volunteers around the world. Cern’s multinational staff moved around so much that the institution’s telephone directory was among the first databases he wanted to link up online. “The other projects I was doing were done by volunteers all over the world,” he recalls. “I wanted to be able to have it as a very collaborative play space, and still the web hasn’t fully provided what I wanted then in terms of being a really powerful collaborative medium.”
Berners-Lee’s belief that his invention is unfinished has turned the geek into an activist. “The web is a social invention as much as a technical invention,” he says. “It’s the whole cat and mouse game between the readers and writers that makes the web work.”
What also made it work, he adds, is that he and Robert Cailliau, his collaborator at Cern, “badgered” the institution not to seek royalties from the invention. The free web soon raced ahead of the rival Gopher protocol, developed at the University of Minnesota, which charged a licence fee."

Source:  Interview with Tim Berners-Lee, The Financial Times, 8th September 2012

Note - More background on Wikipedia

iPad revenues are three times higher than iPhone revenues on Apple's Newsstand

Source:  Report from App Annie, 6th September 2012
Methodology:  "The analyses and insights discussed were drawn from App Annie’s Intelligence data. App Annie takes responsibility for the claims and insights in this article that are based on this data and research. However, App Annie does not take responsibility for any actions or outcomes undertaken by 3rd parties, as a result of this article or the analyses or data contained within."

UK mCommerce sales grew by over 300% Y-o-Y in June 2012

"The latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index show that summer sunshine and Olympic fever loosened purse strings with online sales experiencing its highest growth this year, recording a huge 17% jump on July 2011 and a 9% increase on June 2012. This equated to an estimated £6.5bn spent online (an average of £128  per person), a significant rise on the £5.8bn spent during July 2011. Total growth for the year to date stands at approximately 13% - in line with previous forecasts.
Clothing sales, helped by brief sunny spells and ongoing price cuts, made a welcomed return to double figure growth in July,  leaping 18% on June 2012 and up 15% on July last year.  New autumn lines hitting the shelves also contributed to the clothing spike encouraging shoppers to update their wardrobes earlier than usual.
Travel was up 12% year on year, recovering from a relatively sluggish performance in July 2011 when the sector was down 1% year on year. At £1,050, the average basket value (amount spent in a single purchase) broke the £1,000 barrier for the second time this year – a year-on-year increase of 24%. This growth suggests that despite economic uncertainty, Brits are prepared to spend to compensate for the disappointing summer weather seen in early July.
Electricals performed particularly well in July, increasing 30% on the same time last year, boosted by the wet weather and the need for indoor entertainment. The sector was also helped by Brits jumping online to buy high definition televisions and other electrical devices to guarantee the best seat in the house to watch team GB’s performance in the Olympics.
m-Retail sales continued to grow at a huge rate in July, recording a 313% increase on the same time last year. Whilst this is still very strong growth, it falls short of the year-on-year growth experienced in May and June 2012 (up 360% and 356%, respectively)."

Source:  Press release from IMRG, 20th August 2012