The 10 most pirated movies of 2009

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1 - Star Trek
2 - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
3 - RocknRolla
4 - The Hangover
5 - Twilight
6 - District 9
7 - Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince
8 - State of Play
9 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine
10 - Knowing
Source: ChartsBin.com, taking data from multiple sources, including TorrentFreak.
Caution - this data may be innacurate - read the comments on ChartsBin!

Online game Moshi Monsters has 10 million registered users

"The free-to-play online children's game Moshi Monsters from UK-based developer Mind Candy has notched up more than ten million registered players.
According to the company's figures, more than one million new users are joining every month and the site has become one of the fastest growing children's sites in the world.
The social online game Moshi Monsters allows children to raise a virtual monster while solving educational puzzles that test their maths, spatial awareness, logic and vocabulary skills. Successfully completing puzzles rewards users with a virtual currency that can then be spent on customising their in-game home."
Source: GamesIndustry.biz, 1st December 2009

On Christmas Day Amazon customers bought more Kindle versions of books than physical books

"On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. The Kindle Store now includes over 390,000 books and the largest selection of the most popular books people want to read, including New York TimesBestsellersand New Releases."
Source: Amazon press release, 26th December 2009
Follow the link for lots of other stats about Amazon.

American Kim Kardashian is reportedly paid up to $10,000 each time she posts a sponsored tweet

"Last December, social media guru Chris Brogan received a $500 gift card from K-mart to write an entire blog post about his visit to a K-mart store. Reality show vixen Kim Kardashian's rate? $10,000 per-tweet, according to Advertising Age's Michael Learmonth. Yes, you read that right. Ten. Thousand. Dollars. Per. Tweet.
Kardashian works with "in-stream advertising" company Ad.ly, which also includes Stephen Colbert, Lauren Conrad and Dr. Drew as clients. Derek Rey, co-founder of Ad.ly, told PRNewser today Kardashian "can command" $10,000 per tweet and that Ad.ly limits its "publishers" -- as it calls Kardashian -- to one paid tweet per day as to not alienate her audience. "We're not a polluter," Rey said."
Source: Michael Learmonth of AdAge, reported by the MediaBistro blog, 21st December 2009
Note - Kim Kardashian has 2.7 million followers as at 29th December 2009. She is the 10th most followed person on twitter.

80% of Americans use the internet, and spend an average of 13 hours a week online

"The Harris Interactive poll, released Wednesday, found that 80 percent of U.S. adults go online, whether at home, work, or elsewhere. Those who surf the Net spend an average of 13 hours per week online, but that figure varies widely. Twenty percent are online for two hours or less a week, while 14 percent are there for 24 hours or more.
The average number of hours that people spend online each week has grown over the years, hovering at 7 hours from 1999 through 2002, 8 or 9 hours from 2003 through 2006, and 11 hours in 2007. The level hit its peak at 14 hours in October 2008--after the global recession had set in and just before the U.S. presidential election.
The jump in time spent in cyberspace likely stems from a few factors, according to Harris. More people are comfortable using the Internet. More of them are shopping and watching TV online. In addition, the number of Web sites and online applications has increased. Harris adds that the recession may also play a role since surfing the Net at home is free (after paying monthly access fees), while going out means spending money.
The age group that spent the most time online per week: 30- to 39-year-olds, at 18 hours.
The total number of U.S. adults on the Internet is 184 million, around 80 percent of the total population, according to the poll. That figure is virtually the same as in 2008 but is a big jump from 1999, when it reached at 56 percent, and from 1995, when the figure was a mere 9 percent."
Source: Harris Interactive poll of 2,029 people, conducted between mid July and mid October, reported by CNET, 23rd December 2009

Tapulous is making nearly $1 million a month from its iPhone apps

"iPhone app developer Tapulous says its sales have approached $1 million a month, providing fresh evidence of the growing success of start-ups designing programs for Apple Inc's mobile device.
Tapulous -- with a mere 20 employees -- said its "Tap Tap Revenge" game series has now been installed more than 20 million times, with more than 600 million total games played."
Source: Reuters, 20th December 2009

Kiss's concert from LA Staples Center was seen live on Ustream by 1.1m viewers, for an average of 43 minutes each

"On Nov. 25, Kiss partnered with live streaming video platform Ustream for an online broadcast of the bombastic and pyrotechnic closing concert for its "35 Alive" tour at Los Angeles' Staples Center.
The broadcast drew more than 2 million views -- Ustream's feed was viewed on its own site as well through social-media hubs such as Facebook -- and it generated enough buzz to rate as a trending topic on Twitter during the Thanksgiving eve performance. The 1.1 million unique visitors, while not rocking all night, stuck around a while: The average viewing time during the broadcast was 43 minutes.
"We knew we'd get a big audience," said Kiss' longtime manager, Doc McGhee. "But we didn't know they'd stay on for that long."
Ustream executives said part of the reason for the lengthy viewing times -- and the big audience -- was a backstage pre-show segment that ran before the concert started, which ramped up online buzz before the musicians took the stage."
Source: AdAge, 12th December 2009

Twitter will earn an estimated $25m a year from search deals with Google and Bing

"Twitter Inc. will make about $25 million from Internet-search deals with Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. announced in October, enough to push the site into profitability, people familiar with the matter said.
A deal that made Twitter's messages searchable on Google's site will generate about $15 million, the sources said, while a similar pact with Microsoft's Bing search engine will earn Twitter about $10 million.
As a result, Twitter is expected to make a small profit in 2009 after paying operating costs of about $20 million to $25 million a year. The San Francisco firm has 105 employees, its website says."
Source: LA Times & Bloomberg News, 22nd December 2009

After only one month the Motorola Droid already has 25% of the Android handset traffic in the US

Click the images to enlarge

Source: Page 5 of the AdMob Mobile Metrics report, November 2009
Note: AdMob is a mobile ad server, which means that they provide the mechanism that puts ads onto mobile sites. This means that their traffic figures - which handsets they deliver ads to - provide a good proxy for mobile internet traffic.

Top Trending Terms on Twitter 2009

In order, although 'the order is dynamic'
1 - #iranelection
2 - #musicmonday
3 - Michael Jackson
4 - Google Wave
5 - New Moon
6 - Follow Friday
7 - Halloween
8 - Paranormal Activity
9 - Harry Potter
10 - TGIF
11 - BBC
12 - BBQ
13 - Swine Flu
14 - District 9
15 - Susan Boyle
16 - Star Trek
17 - Snow Leopard
18 - Lakers
19 - #SxSW
20 - American Idol
21 - Glee
22 - Adam Lambert
23 - Easter
24 - Watchmen
25 - True Blood
26 - Dollhouse
27 - #openwebawards
28 - Goodmorning
29 - Lady GaGa
30 - Kobe
31 - VALENTINE'S DAY
32 - Nfl
33 - SUPER BOWL
34 - Wolverine
35 - CNN
36 - AIG
37 - Bruno
38 - Thanksgiving
39 - Oprah
40 - Mexico
41 - SUMMER
42 - Chris Brown
43 - SNL
44 - Palm Pre
45 - MIAMI
46 - Paris
47 - California
48 - Transformers 2
49 - MW2
50 - CES
[By my reckoning 21 relate to entertainment-based brands or words, including names of TV shows, films, and musicians. Tells you a lot about the twitter audience.]
Source: AdAge, 17th December 2009, citing data from What The Trend's Zeitgeist

Comparative Figures - IPTV Subscribers & penetrations around the world, 2008

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IPTV is most popular in France, and least popular in the UK and Ireland. UK figures exclude BT Vision
Source: IDATE, as reported by in Figure 5.6 of Ofcom International Communications Market 2009, December 2009
Read more about this report at the Ofcom website

Comparative Figures - Mobile as a proportion of total mobile and fixed line revenues, and mobile and fixed line connections, 2003 & 2008

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In Poland 75% of mobile and fixed telephone revenue is generated by mobile, and 81% of connections are mobile

Source: IDATE/ Industry Data / Ofcom, reported in charts 4.7 & 4.10 of Ofcom International Communications Market 2009, December 2009
Read more about this report at the Ofcom website

Comparative Figures - Ad Spend by Media around the world 2008

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Of the markets examined, the UK has the highest percentage level of internet ad spend
Source: World Advertising Trends data, quoted in figure 2.12, Ofcom International Communications Market 2009, December 2009
Read more about this report at the Ofcom website

Twitter is currently seeing approximately 1.5 million tweets an hour

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Source: GigaTweet, by Nathan Reed, December 2009

Music service Pandora is adding 600,000 new users a week, with half of them coming from mobile devices

"The service has announced that it surpassed 40 million registered users earlier this month. That means the service had doubled its size in 2009. And it’s adding 600,000 new registered users a week now. Even more remarkable is that half of those new users are coming from mobile devices. And of those, the iPhone continues to lead the way with 10 million Pandora users of its own. That number has grown some 400% this year."
Source: Techcrunch, 16th December 2009

The most-viewed YouTube videos of 2009

1 - Susan Boyle - >120m views
2 - David After Dentist - >37m views
3 - JK Wedding Dance - >33m views
4 - New Moon Trailer - >31m views
5 - Evian Babies - >27m views
Figures refer to global viewing, and the highest views for an individual video, rather than copies aggregated together.
Source: TechRadar, 16th December 2009
More data on the official YouTube blog

The average American consumes 34 gigabytes of information a day

"In 2008, Americans consumed information for about 1.3 trillion hours, an average of almost 12 hours per day. Consumption totaled 3.6 zettabytes and 10,845 trillion words, corresponding to 100,500 words and 34 gigabytes for an average person on an average day. A zettabyte is 10 to the 21st power bytes, a million million gigabytes. These estimates are from an analysis of more than 20 different sources of information, from very old (newspapers and books) to very new (portable computer games, satellite radio, and Internet video). Information at work is not included.
We defined "information" as flows of data delivered to people and we measured the bytes, words, and hours of consumer information. Video sources (moving pictures) dominate bytes of information, with 1.3 zettabytes from television and approximately 2 zettabytes of computer games. If hours or words are used as the measurement, information sources are more widely distributed, with substantial amounts from radio, Internet browsing, and others. All of our results are estimates.
Previous studies of information have reported much lower quantities. Two previous How Much Information? studies, by Peter Lyman and Hal Varian in 2000 and 2003, analyzed the quantity of original content created, rather than what was consumed. A more recent study measured consumption, but estimated that only .3 zettabytes were consumed worldwide in 2007.
Hours of information consumption grew at 2.6 percent per year from 1980 to 2008, due to a combination of population growth and increasing hours per capita, from 7.4 to 11.8. More surprising is that information consumption in bytes increased at only 5.4 percent per year. Yet the capacity to process data has been driven by Moore's Law, rising at least 30 percent per year. One reason for the slow growth in bytes is that color TV changed little over that period. High-definition TV is increasing the number of bytes in TV programs, but slowly.
The traditional media of radio and TV still dominate our consumption per day, with a total of 60 percent of the hours. In total, more than three-quarters of U.S. households' information time is spent with non-computer sources."
Source: How Much Information? report from the Global Information Industry Centre, University of California, San Diego, December 2009

American PVR (DVR) viewing rose by 21% and online video viewing rose by 35% y-o-y in Q3 2009

"Nielsen’s third quarter A2/M2™ Three Screen Report – a regular analysis from Nielsen’s Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement™ initiative – reveals that DVR and online video continue to show considerable growth from the previous year: up 21.1% and 34.9%, respectively, in time spent for 3Q09. Given the consistent spike we’ve seen in usage among the three screens of television, Internet and mobile, consumers are clearly adding video platforms to their weekly schedule, rather than replacing them.
[...]
In 3Q09, the average American watched 31 hours of TV per week, with 31 minutes spent in playback mode with their DVR
In addition, each week the average consumer spent 4 hours on the Internet and 22 minutes watching online video
The average consumer spent 3 minutes watching mobile video each week"
Source: A2/M2 Three Screen Report, The Nielsen Company, December 2009

ITV was rumoured to be charging £8,000 per second for advertising in the X-Factor final

"Media analysts predict this weekend will prove the most lucrative in ITV's history. So far, the biggest viewing figures for The X Factor were garnered on the night that 16.4 million tuned in to witness the fate of the Irish twins John and Edward Grimes, better known as Jedward. This beat the 14 million who saw Alexandra Burke sail to victory last year. The strange appeal of Jedward has already given ITV1 its biggest viewing figures for last month, when 14.4 million watched in amazement as the teenagers ousted Welsh singer Lucie Jones from the show on 8 November.
These high ratings helped the channel last month, when BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4 and Five each posted their lowest November audience share for years. ITV1, in contrast, managed an all-day share that was its best November performance since 2006. The popularity of ITV1's I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! has also paid dividends. The ratings for the jungle reality series were the best since 2005.
This weekend affords a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel for the ailing broadcaster, which is still wrestling with falling viewing figures and advertising income. A year ago, ITV executives were braced for a 20% plunge in revenues as advertising dropped off the scale. But thanks to The X Factor and Simon Cowell's other monster hit, Britain's Got Talent, revenues could now fall by only 12%.
The channel is thought to be able to charge as much as £250,000 for 30 seconds of advertising airtime on The X Factor tonight. "If you're not on X Factor this weekend, you won't get your message across," said George Constantinou of Starcom MediaVest."
Source: The Observer, 13th December 2009
[The £8,000 a second/ £250,000 for 30 seconds figure has also been mentioned by TV buyer colleagues]

Top selling US single downloads of the 2000s

"1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain, "Low" (2007) - 5,214,000
2. Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis, "Just Dance" (2008) - 4,690,000
3. Jason Mraz, "I'm Yours" (2008) - 4,619,000
4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic, "Apologize" (2007) - 4,439,000
5. The Black Eyed Peas, "Boom Boom Pow"(2009) - 4,349,000
6. Soulja Boy Tell'em, "Crank That" (2007) - 4,315,000
7. Lady Gaga, "Poker Face" (2008) - 4,200,000
8. Coldplay, "Viva la Vida" (2008) - 4,140,000
9. Taylor Swift, "Love Story" (2007) - 4,005,000
10. Katy Perry, "Hot N Cold" (2008) - 3,945,000"
Figures in brackets are the year of release; final figures are the total number of paid downloads
Source: Nielsen Soundscan, as reported by The Independent, 9th December 2009

European internet and broadband penetration rates 2006-9 as percent of households

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E.g. in Belgium in 2009 67% of households have access to the internet, and 63% have access to broadband

Source: Eurostat, 2nd December 2009
Lots more data in the full document!

Dell have generated $4.5 million in revenue through twitter in the last 6 months

"It's been widely reported by now that Dell's @delloutlet Twitter account that broadcasts deals on computer equipment has earned the company $6.5 million. The more interesting part, and the one that's overlooked, is that $4.5 million of this money was earned between June and December. In June, the company said the account had brought in just $2M since the its launch two years earlier (or, they say, $2M in outlet items and another $1M in new products, but they don't break down the $6.5M number). Last December, the amount was at $1M.
So, it took Dell 18 months to earn its first Twitter million. Then it took just six months to add another million to that. And the next six months brought in $4.5M."
Source: Adverlab, 10th December 2009
Additional info:
DellOutlet's followers on twitter have risen from 208,864 on 23rd March 2009 to 1,477,440 on 11th December, according to Twitterholic, retrieved 11th December 2009

A day on the internet (graphic)

Created by Online Education

Source: Sadly no individual sources quoted (some people!), but the graphic comes from OnlineEducation.net, December 2009

The average American DVD-watching household has 114 DVDs

"The average DVD household has 114 DVDs in its collection.
The average video game collection has 48 titles.
In the average DVD and video game households there is unwrapped product:
26% of the surveyed DVD households own some unopened DVDs.
11% of the surveyed video game households own some unopened games."
Source: A joint study commissioned by the Content Delivery and Storage Association (CDSA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) and conducted by The NPD Group, reported by DVD Intelligence, 29th October 2008

Declared stats on Facebook UK advertising

"I guarantee CPMs [cost per thousand impressions] on our home page are three or four times those of Yahoo’s. On click-through, the engagement levels we’re getting are 10-15 times that. Not 10% more, 10-15 times Yahoo’s click-through rates. This is where we’re selling to P&G and those big brands.
The other side of our business is performance: those little square boxes, ASUs [Ad Space Units], that appear everywhere except the home page. 80% of our inventory is driven through a self-service auction model. We’re on 50bn of them a month in the UK. That’s scale. And big brands are saying they’re getting more volume and lower cost than Google on Facebook right now."
Source: Blake Chandlee, Facebook EMEA Commercial Director (& ex of Yahoo Europe), interviewed by the NMA, 10th December 2009

More than 60 million people use Facebook Connect each month

"More than 80,000 websites and devices (including iPhone and Xbox) have implemented Facebook Connect since it launched in December 2008, says Beard. And more than 60 million Facebook users use Facebook Connect each month. And it’s not just a lot of small sites using the product. Two-thirds of comScore’s US Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect."
Source: Ethan Beard of Facebook, speaking at LeWeb, as reported by TechCrunch, 9th December 2009

For every 100 copies of a physical book Amazon sell, they sell 48 for the Kindle, where available

"For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing."
Source: Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Interviewed by the New York Times, 2nd December 2009
Another stat from the same source:
"When we launched Kindle two years ago, it was 90,000 titles, and today it’s more than 350,000. We’re adding thousands of titles every week. Our vision is every book ever printed in every language, all available within 60 seconds."

More than 2 million vinyl records were sold in the US in 2009

Make no mistake, vinyl is still niche, though it has now grown beyond its initial small footprint of deejays, die-hard collectors and other aficionados. According to the latest data from Nielsen Soundscan, wax has already set a sales record in 2009 - at least for the 90s and 2000s. Specifically, US-based sales recently crossed into the two millions, beating a 2008-year total of 1.9 million.
Part of that is coming from the retro-cool of it all, though other factors - including spacious artwork, lyrics, and lots of tangible satisfaction - are also playing a role. Actually, that is great for niche retailers, and instructive for artists. Outside of that, the payoff remains limited - in perspective, year-to-date album sales are now past 320 million, also according to Soundscan.
Source: Nielsen Soundscan, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 3rd December 2009

Only 39,000 of Susan Boyle's 701,000 first week US sales came from iTunes

"You've had a good week, Susan Boyle. The 'Britain's Got Talent' star sold an astounding 701,000 copies of her debut album, 'I Dreamed a Dream,' in the U.S., giving her the best first week sales of 2009 and the best-selling debut album by any woman since SoundScan began tracking in 1991.
It's also the biggest debut album by any artist since Snoop Dogg's 'Doggystyle' in 1993.
Her record label, Columbia, said Wednesday that 'Dream' has moved a whopping 3 million copies around the world in its opening week.
Also amazing is the way people purchased the album. Although digital sales have grown for years -- with iTunes being the main beneficiary -- consumers headed back to the record store for Boyle's debut.
Columbia chairman Steve Barnett told the New York Times that only about 39,000 of Ms. Boyle's total in the United States were sold through iTunes. Consumers could also purchase the album on shopping network QVC."
Source: Data from Columbia, reported by Popeater, 2nd December 2009

Firefox is the most popular browser in Germany

"Firefox is now the most popular web browser in Germany, used by 44.2. percent of internet users, according to the latest W3B study from Fittkau and Maass, a respected German Internet research consultancy.
In the rest of the world, it’s still quite a different story but in Germany Mozilla has reached a milestone and should be celebrating."
Source: Data from Fittkau and Maass (original report in German), reported by TheNextWeb, 2nd December 2009

US Black Friday and Cyber Monday eCommerce stats for 2009

Black Friday:
"The average dollar value that consumers spent per online order rose 35.0 percent year over year, led by apparel retailers.
Consumers are buying more items per order than they did last year—by
18.3 percent.
Consumers are spending considerably less time browsing retailers’ sites, suggesting they had done their research prior to Black Friday and that they are shopping from lists.
Browsing sessions were down by 5.4 percent
The number of people who left a site after viewing only one page (also known as a “bounce” rate) was up by 39.4 percent
Page views per session declined by 30.4 percent"

Cyber Monday:
"Cyber Monday continued the momentum set by Black Friday. Sales were up 24.1 percent compared to Black Friday 2009.
Consumers spent more per online order ($180.03 versus $170.19 for an increase of 5.8 percent) compared to Black Friday 2009.
Sales were up 13.7 percent compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
The average dollar amount consumers spent per online order rose 38.2 percent from Cyber Monday 2008 ($180.03 versus $130.24), led by apparel retailers.
Consumers bought nearly 10 percent more items per order on Cyber Monday 2009 compared to Black Friday 2009 and nearly 30 percent more compared to Cyber Monday 2008.
Consumer shopping hit its peak from 9-10 a.m. PST, but maintained stronger momentum throughout the day than on Cyber Monday 2008."
Source: Coremetrics Benchmark Reports, December 2009

69 million people use the Farmville application on Facebook

"To prove the popularity of these extra-curricular sections of Facebook, Johnson explained: "Applications make up a huge part of Facebook. There are over 90,000 applications on Facebook.
"69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that's more users than Twitter.""
Source: Trevor Johnson of Facebook, reported by TechRadar, 2nd December 2009

Google sends out approximately 4 billion clicks a month to news publishers

"Google sends about 4 billion clicks each month, or 100,000 per minute, to news publishers via Google News, web search and other services."
Source: Official Google Public Policy blog, 1st December 2009

Collectively Google and AdMob have an estimated 24% share of US mobile ad network revenue

"When Google announced its proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob earlier this month, there was little question that the deal would create a powerhouse in mobile display advertising. But exactly how strong a position the combined companies would have was more difficult to quantify.
Now, a new analysis estimates that Google and AdMob together would account for nearly a quarter of the total ad revenue generated by the top U.S. mobile ad networks. Based on their combined 2009 mobile ad revenue of $68 million, market research firm IDC estimates the two companies would have a 24% market share.
While the AdMob acquisition would give Google a leading position in mobile display advertising, it would be unlikely to trigger an antitrust action, according to IDC.
The next-biggest player would be Millennial Media, with $51 million in mobile ad revenue, or an 18% market share, followed by Yahoo, at $32 million (11%); Microsoft, at $23 million (8%); Quattro Wireless, at $21 million (7%); JumpTap, at $11 million (4%); and AOL, at $7 million (2%). All others combined would make up the remaining 26%.
The figures were based on the number of ad impressions served by the networks multiplied by an estimated average CPM rate (which was not disclosed). What it all adds up to in IDC's view is that Google's chief rivals must pursue their own deals to keep pace in the emerging mobile ad arena."
Source: Estimates by IDC, reported by MediaPost, 23rd November 2009

Facebook has >350m monthly users

"Company Figures
More than 350 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
More than 35 million users update their status each day
More than 55 million status updates posted each day
More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
More than 3.5 million events created each month
More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

Average User Figures
Average user has 130 friends on the site
Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
Average user is invited to 3 events per month
Average user is a member of 12 groups

International Growth
More than 70 translations available on the site
About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

Platform
More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
More than 350,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
More than 15,000 websites, devices and applications have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008

Mobile
There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products"
Source: Official Facebook Statistics, retrieved 2nd December 2009
Earlier figures here (>300m active users, September 2009_

Evian Babies is the most-viewed online ad, as recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, with 45 million views to date

"Evian's 'Roller-skating Babies' viral ad, created by BETC Euro RSCG, has been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the most viewed online advertisement to date.
Adding up views for various versions of the ad across video sharing websites, the Guinness Book of Records has bestowed the honour on the ad for having 45,166,109 views as of 9 November 2009.
The ad ties in with Evian's "live young" strapline and shows babies performing a series of increasingly skilled roller-skate stunts, set to the tune of 'Rapper's Delight'."
[Comment: Up to a point. It depends what you classify as an ad. If you include film trailers then Twilight is easily the bibbest, as detailed by this analysis by Visible Measures. However it is very possible that Evian Babies is genuinely the most popular TV ad that has been posted to a video site]
Source: BrandRepublic, 16th November 2009

Rock Band now features over 1,000 songs; overall approximately 60 million songs have been downloaded

"The overall Rock Band music game platform now features over 1,000 songs from 390 artists available across disc-based and downloadable sources, say publisher MTV Games and developer Harmonix.
Those tracks, both free and paid, have been downloaded some 60 million times by Rock Band players, making for an impressive average per-track download count of 60,000. (That number is likely higher for download-only tracks, since songs included with base game discs need not be downloaded.)
The milestones comes just over two years after the franchise was launched with the original Rock Band for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The game, and series, later came to Wii and PlayStation 2."
Source: Data from MTV Games and Harmonix, reported by Gamasutra, 25th November 2009

Spotify has spent less than £5,000 in marketing costs in the past 3 years

"Despite having spent less than £5,000 marketing itself since its launch three years ago, Spotify is fast becoming a household name, pulling in the punters with an offer that looks too good to be true: all the online music anyone could want, for nothing except the bother of having to listen to an advert rather less frequently than on radio. And it's legal."
[Note - I'm assuming that they mean paid advertising. Spotify certainly employ people in marketing and PR functions - if these salaries and other fees were included then the figure would be well over £5,000. So let's assume that they mean paid advertising, which does not detract from the story.]
Source: Figure cited by The Observer, 29th November 2009

Approximately 15% of UK book purchases are made online

"Recent figures indicate that the share of book sales going to the high-street chains is in sharp decline, squeezed on one hand by those even narrower book choices in supermarkets themselves, and on the other by the ever-rising internet. In fact, the proportion of UK book retailing taken by online purchases now stands – at around 15 per cent – at a lower level than many observers might have predicted. Amazon has not yet flooded the marketplace."
Source: Boyd Tonkin, The Independent, 27th November 2009

77% of Facebook fan pages have fewer than 1,000 fans

Click to enlarge

"95% of pages have more than 10 fans
65% of pages have more than 100 fans
23% of pages have more than 1,000 fans
4% of pages have more than 10,000 fans
0.76% of pages have more than 100,000 fans
0.047% of pages have more than one million fans (297 in total)."
Source: Data from Sysomos, reported by Techcrunch, 28th November 2009

US newspaper advertising revenues fell by 28% Y-o-Y in Q3 2009, with the online element down 17%

"The economy may have rallied in the third quarter, but the newspaper industry did not, as total advertising revenues -- including print and online -- tumbled 28%, from roughly $10.1 billion in the third quarter of 2008 to about $6.4 billion this year. The third-quarter loss is on par with first and second-quarter declines of 28.3% and 29%, respectively.
As in previous quarters, losses were spread evenly across all the main newspaper advertising categories -- including national, down 29.8%, retail, down 24%, and classifieds, down 37.9%.
National advertising in particular reached a discouraging milestone in the third quarter, with total revenues falling below $1 billion (to $956 million). That's the first time since the third quarter of 1995.
[...]
Similar to previous quarters, newspaper print ad revenue declines were joined by online, which fell 17% from $750 million in the third quarter of 2008 to $623 million this year.
With the latest results, the newspaper industry's total print revenues have experienced year-over-year declines for 14 straight quarters, while online has fallen for six straight quarters."
Source: The Newspaper Publishers of America (NPA), reported by Mediapost, 17th November 2009

Data on the first 5 months of Nokia's Ovi Store

"2009 has sure gone by quickly and being mid-November, 2010 is rapidly approaching. For those of you who are mobile developers or are following the various mobile application stores available in market I thought I would give another update regarding Ovi Store and where we are since we launched about 5 months ago. The following stats are from 26 May through 31 October:
Available on over 100 different Nokia devices (60+ Symbian S60 devices)
Active users from over 180 countries
Developers from 65 countries are distributing content
8 countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.
Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia & UK
In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement
Redownload now available and search is much improved, more details (http://tinyurl.com/yf9tmbd)
Ovi Store will ship embedded on most new compatible Nokia devices including Symbian S60 and Series 40 from Q4 2009
On average, each registered user has downloaded at least 8 items from Ovi Store
In October, the number of content items downloaded was over 70% higher than in Sept."
Source: Bill Perry, Sr. Services Marketing Manager for Forum Nokia based in California, in a blog post, 17th November 2009

Google makes 97% of it's income from Advertising

Click to enlarge - see the bottom right hand corner

Source: Google Inc financial tables for quarter ended 30th June 2009

Last.fm gained a million extra subscribers in a week following integration with XBox Live

"CBS should be pleased with its choice to allow Microsoft to sync Xbox LIVE to Last.fm, as the partnership has already netted the streaming music service nearly a million new subscribers. Last.fm went live on Xbox last Tuesday, and both companies are already hyping the deal as a success in terms of the numbers. CBS says it broke a record for the number of new profiles created in a 24-hour period, and that Xbox LIVE users had already streamed more than 120 million minutes worth of music."
[That's 120 minutes per user...]
Source: PaidContent, 24th November 2009

2 million users logged into Facebook from XBox Live in the first week of operation

"Microsoft on Monday said that millions of Xbox Live members have used the new social-media features that the company pushed live a week ago.
In June, Microsoft announced it would begin offering Xbox Live users access to Facebook, Twitter, and Last.fm. And while the manifestation of each of those services is scaled down on Xbox Live, the rollout has been one of the company's big pushes this fall for its hugely popular online system.
According to Microsoft spokesman David Dennis, the first-week figures show that at least 2 million Xbox Live users have logged into Facebook, and that half a million Last.fm accounts were created in the first 24 hours of availability. Dennis didn't address how many Xbox Live users have used the service's Twitter feature, except to say that there have been "tweets from nearly every market where we have Xbox Live."
So, based on the data Dennis provided, the Facebook integration with Xbox Live has had the most adoption. And while 2 million people logging into Facebook is far short of the 20 million total Xbox Live users, it is notable that fully one tenth of the service's users have tried the Facebook feature in just the first week."
Source: cnet, 23rd November 2009

Over 60% of mobile ad requests seen by AdMob in the UK come from either the iPhone or the iPod Touch

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Source: Page 14 of AdMob Mobile Metrics report, October 2009, released 23rd November 2009

Videos from Universal Music Group have more ads sold against them on YouTube than those of any other company

Cliick to enlarge

Source: TubeMogul, reported by BusinessInsider, 20th November 2009

Torrent site mininova has seen over 10 billion downloads since 2005

"Mininova, the most visited BitTorrent indexer, broke an impressive record today. Since its inception, the site has served a dazzling 10 billion torrent downloads.
mininovaMininova, founded in January 2005, grew out to become one of the most successful torrent sites with millions of daily users.
The site has grown steadily over the years and continues to do so, despite a setback in court this summer. In fact, today the 10 billionth torrent file was downloaded from Mininova, an impressive achievement to say the least."
Source - TorrentFreak.com, 19th November 2009

Over two million people saw the video stream of the red carpet event for New Moon on MySpace

"MySpace just released their data and as it turns out, the stream garnered over 2 million uniques, and almost 3 million total viewers. [I think they mean views - Dan]
According to MySpace press materials, “It was a huge success breaking the record to become the highest amount of viewers to tune in to a Ustream red carpet live webcast. It also set the record as the farthest reaching webcast for Ustream with over two million uniques.”"
Source: MySpace, reported by Mashable, 17th November 2009

Australian web users spend over 25% of their time on Facebook

"The extent of Facebook's reach in Australia - it accounts for 29 per cent of all time spent online by Australians - has led to research group Nielsen defining the trend as "Facebook Time" and "Non Facebook Time".
"It's just phenomenal," said Nielsen Online's director of analytics, Mark Higginson. "Every time I run those numbers I have to double check. Australians are spending nearly a third of all their time browsing the internet on Facebook alone."
In October, Australian users spent 27.2 hours browsing online and 7.55 hours of the total was sucked up by Facebook. MySpace managed just 39 minutes and Twitter 17 minutes."
Source: Data from Nielsen, reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, 20th November 2009

EA bought 2 year old social networking games company Playfish for $300 million

"The US video game publisher Electronic Arts has paid $275m (£170m) in cash, plus $25m in share options, for two-year old gaming company Playfish.
The deal could cost a further $100m if Playfish hits certain financial targets by December 2011.
Playfish is different from many rivals as it makes free games for social networking sites - such as Facebook and MySpace - and mobile phones.
Players typically will then start paying for extras as they get hooked.
Playfish has 60 million registered users for its virtual games, such as Pet Society and Restaurant City."
Source: BBC News, 9th November 2009

Modern Warfare 2 sells an estimated 7.2 million copies on the first day of release

"Early data is in and the confirmation that Modern Warfare 2 will become the fastest-selling game of all time isn't a big suprise in itself, but the margin with which it looks to take the record is astounding.
VGChartz preliminary day one figures puts the sales to date (including the midnight launches) at over 7 million copies worldwide across Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Around 55% of sales are on Xbox 360, 33% on PS3 and the remaining 12% on PC. In terms of regional breakdowns, over 4.2 million units were sold in the Americas (3.7 million USA), 1.2 million in the UK and 350,000 each in France and Germany.
Based on the day one figures and the Tuesday release, week one figures should come in at close to ten million units which smashes the 5.92 million week one record set by Grand Theft Auto 4 last year and positions Modern Warfare 2 as the most successful game launch of all time.
In fact, even on a single format (Xbox 360), week one sales are projected to come in at around 5.5 million units - this alone is enough to be the fastest-seller of all time, even without the PS3 and PC versions"
Source: VGChartz, 11th November 2009

62% of UK illegal downloaders say that using Spotify has reduced the amount they illegally download

"Almost two thirds (62 per cent) of those who admit to illegally downloading, say using Spotify has encouraged them to reduce the amount they download illegally or kick the habit altogether.
The survey** from the leading price comparison website moneysupermarket.com on downloading and streaming also showed that one in eight Brits (12 per cent) admit to download illegally in the past six months."
Source: Press release from MoneySupermarket.com, 6th November 2009

Apple only sold 5,000 iPhones in the first 4 days on sale in China

"The iPhone didn't exactly roar out of the gates in China, only picking up 5,000 new subscribers in its first weekend, according to China Unicom.
China's number two carrier, China Unicom, says it's pleased with the launch of the iPhone, and it will add revenue for the company in Q4, Reuters reports.
Compared to the ususal rip roaring success we hear about iPhone launches, this sounds small. Apple Insider says Apple is expected to sell around 460,000 iPhones annually through Unicom."
Source: China Unicom, reported by Sillicon Alley Insider, 3rd November 2009

The Your Reekok app for the iPhone generates more direct sales for the company than its website

"The Your Reebok application on the iPhone delivers income in spades. Created by Inside Mobile and Agency Mobile, this neat app allows users to design their own trainers and then either order a pair or upload them for others to view and purchase. Launched earlier this year, the application now generates more direct sales for Reebok than its website. That's the kind of case study other marketers pay attention to."
Source: The Guardian, 9th November 2009

Ebay's iPhone app has generated over $400m in sales

"Since $400 million was generated in business since the eBay application’s launch, Mr. Donahoe said that devices like this one and others like it are going to impact his company.
Last week someone bought a $350,000 Lamborghini on the iPhone. Also, someone bought a $150,000 boat from their iPhone"
Source: MobileMarketer, 24th September 2009

Barack Obama is the most listed twitter user

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Source: BloggersBlog, retrieved 6th November 2009

The Pizza Hut iPhone app generated more than $1m in sales in 3 months

"After being live in the iTunes App Store for just three months, the Pizza Hut App for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch has garnered more than one million dollars in sales. As the featured icon in the iTunes Lifestyle Category, the App is a proven option for customers seeking an innovative way to order their pizza, pasta, and wings from Pizza Hut."
Source: Pizza Hut press release, 28th December 2009

The Foo Fighters Facebook & iPhone live show delivered 440,000 live streams

"The Foo Fighters’ live show on Friday night came with little fanfare outside of the band’s core fanbase, but it delivered 2 hours and 45 minutes of greatest hits to more than 150,000 viewers around the world. The video drew 440,000 total live streams, with a max of 20,000 at any one time.
Airing on Livestream (both web and iPhone) and Facebook and produced and powered by Livestream out of the band’s private Los Angeles studio, the show was for once not a broadcast of a pre-existing concert. And while it played, the band responded to Facebook comments and took song requests from users."
Source: NewTeeVee, 2nd November 2009
Related - U2's YouTube concert delivered nearly 10m live streams

Only 20% of iPhone Apps are actively used

"Today the App Store has passed the 100k apps available on the App Store (sept was officially announced 85k). This is a great news and the pace keeps growing.
But there is a bad news. Very few apps are enjoying the ride.
We have found out that actually 20k apps are actually used (meaning installed and kept on people's iPhone). This number may grow with our user base, but it is a clear indicator that only 20% of all apps are actually raising interest.
The second number which is more dramatic is that there is a very very very long tail of apps: The graph below gives you an indication of the rank of each app we scan (based on the number of installation) and the % of users that own them.

Click to expand

A very little number of apps makes it above 50% of iphone owners (easy to guess which one: facebook, shazam,...) it goes down VERY fast. The app rank 1000 is owned by less than 2% of the iPhone owners (1.76%) and it goes down very fast also."
Source: Blog post by AppsFire, 27th October 2009

Operating income for News Corp's newspapers division fell by 81% in the year to September 2009

"The Newspapers and Information Services segment reported first quarter operating income of $25 million, a decrease of $109 million compared with the same period a year ago. The decline was driven by lower advertising revenues, partially offset by lower operating expenses.
The U.K. newspaper group reported lower first quarter operating income contributions compared to the year ago quarter due to a 15% reduction in advertising revenues and a 6% decline in circulation revenues in local currency terms.
The Australian newspaper group reported lower first quarter operating income versus a strong first quarter of fiscal 2009, primarily due to a 17% decline in local currency advertising revenues, reflecting reduced classified, national and real estate advertising. Circulation revenues were in line with the prior year quarter. The reduced revenue contribution was partially offset by lower operating expenses.
Dow Jones’ first quarter operating results declined from the same period a year ago, due to lower advertising revenue at The Wall Street Journal and lower information services revenue. These declines were partially offset by reduced operating expenses and increased circulation revenues which were driven by price increases at The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal now has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the U.S."
Source: Page 4 of News Corporation Earnings Release, 4th November 2009

People who illegally download music spend more on music than people who don't

"People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study. The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 a year on music – £33 more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.
[...]
The poll, which surveyed 1,000 16- to 50-year-olds with internet access, found that one in 10 people admit to downloading music illegally."
Surce: Poll conducted in the UK by Ipsos Mori, commissioned by Demos, reported by The Independent, 1st November 2009

There are an estimated 4 million 'Jailbroken' iPhones in circulation

"It’s been months since we introduced jailbroken detection to our library, and we’ve begun to get a better understanding of the jailbroken ecosystem, which has remained reasonably steady. To date, Pinch Analytics has received data from approximately 4.0 million jailbroken devices. About 38%, or around a million and a half of those, have used a pirated application. This estimate is low – application pirates take steps to avoid detection – but it’s worth pointing out that an individual who jailbreaks their phone is not necessarily an individual that steals applications."
Source: Pinch Analytics, 12th October 2009

1.27 billion people (31% of all mobile users) access the web through mobile devices

"Then I found finally the first analyst to give an update for 2009 for mobile web/mobile internet/mobile browsing usage. Note that this is not "the real internet" on a phone, this is any kind of browsing use, both the "real internet" like say on an iPhone or email on a Blackberry; as well as the "mobile internet" ie WAP usage of what is often operator/carrier portals. Yet, if you accss Google on a phone, regardless of whether via web in the traditional HTML and WWW basis, or via WAP, it is still a browser-based service. Same for Ebay or Yahoo or Twitter or Facebook. Any browser based access on a phone, that is "equivalent" to accessing that same internet service and its (usually mobile-optimimized) mobile site.
So Yankee Group reports that we now have 31% of all mobile phone owners using the mobile web, If you feel that it cannot be, that you don't see that many users around you in your world, remember these are global numbers, so they include of course all those countries where mobile web use is far greater than PC based internet use, such as South Africa or Japan or India etc. And yes, previously it was me and my consultancy saying so, now we have a major analyst house, Yankee Group, giving us the number.
31%? how many users is that worldwide? at the start of the year we had 4.1 billion mobile phone subscriptions on the planet, so at the start of 2009, we had reached the level of 1.27 billion mobile browsing users."
Source: Yankee Group, reported by Tomi Ahonen, 30th October 2009

Total annual revenues generated by SMS now exceed $100 billion

"We have now heard from Portio Research, who do report that SMS total global user base has passed 3 billion users. Portion also reports on the total revenues earned by SMS, and yes, that number has now officially passed 100 billion dollars. Yes, as we told you here before, as of now, the service that is only 16 years old, has grown to such a giant, it is as big as the global music industry, plus the total worldwide movie industry, and the total worldwide videogaming industry - added together. That is 100 billlion dollars. Or to put it another way, its bigger than global radio, or bigger than worldwide book publishing,.. Not bad for a messaging platform that allows only 160 characters per message..."
Source: Portio Research, reported by Tomi Ahonen, 30th October 2009

Facebook accounts for 6% of all US internet visits (Hitwise data)

(& twitter only 0.14%)

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Source: Bill Tancer of Hitwise, writing in his blog, 29th Ocober 2009

The Huffington Post site now has more unique visitors than the Washington Post site

"In news that shows another seismic shift in the media landscape - this time online - the Huffington Post passed Washingtonpost.com in unique visitors in September, according to new data made available by Nielsen Online (via EditorandPublisher.com). Additional data about online news sites from the rankings:
The Huffington Post was up 26% year-over-year with 9.4 million uniques while the audience at Washingtonpost.com dropped nearly 30% to 9.2 million. HuffPo was not far behind USAToday.com, which had 9.9 million uniques.
Yahoo News (42.6 million uniques), CNN (38.2 million uniques), MSNBC (36.5 million uniques), AOL News (25.7 million uniques), and NYTimes.com topped the September list, with Huff Post at #15 and Washingtonpost.com at #16.
NYTimes.com expanded its audience by 7% to 21.5 million uniques in September, after several months of losses. The Examiner group of newspapers had the highest rate of growth in September, up 373% to 6.4 million uniques.
Nielsen warned, however, that year-over-year comparisons for these news sites should be viewed with caution. Since June, the company expanded its panel by eight times its previous number. Additionally, news events can often alter site audiences during a particular time period. Nielsen said this trending could affect some sites and should only be used directionally."
Source: Nielsen Online, reported by MarketingVox, 19th October 2009

There were nearly 10 million live streams of U2's concert on YouTube

"YouTube's live webcast of U2's "360" concert at the Rose Bowl on Sunday generated nearly 10 million streams across the globe, making it the single-largest streaming event in the Internet vid giant's five-year history.
"This was a big win for the YouTube community," said Chris Maxcy, YouTube's head of music partnerships.
The full-length concert vid, which runs nearly 2 1/2 hours, has since drawn more than 1 million views after three days on YouTube."
Source: Variety, 28th October 2009

83% of Tivo users who watched an episode of Mad Men that they had recorded fast forwarded through the commercials

"AMC's Mad Men saw 83% of its timeshifted audience fast-forward through its commercials, compared to a genre benchmark of 73%. Comedy Central's South Park similarly showed fast-forwarding of 66% compared to genre average of 55%.
NBC's 30 Rock and sitcoms in general were the exception with only 64% fast-forwarding compared to a genre average of 66%."
Source: TiVo press release, 23rd September 2009

Over 5 billion tweets have been posted

"The microblogging site only reached its one billionth Tweet last November, and was only up to 1.6 billion in April. The remaining 3.4 billion Tweets have been sent in just six months, suggesting massive growth in the use of the site.
There is some debate over whether the @robinsloan Tweet – which he is calling the “pentagigatweet” – is really the five billionth.
The number of a Tweet is displayed in its web address or URL. @robinsloan’s Tweet is at the URL twitter.com/robinsloan/status/5000000000 , or five billion.
However, Twitter has changed its numbering system on more than one occasion. It is not clear that Tweet 5,000,000,000 would have the exact URL number 5000000000.
What is definite, however, is that the five billion mark has been passed.
A third-party site called GigaTweet has been counting all Tweets for some time now. Its count at the time of writing had just passed 5,018,584,000, although it is going up by around 300 a second."
Source: Daily Telegraph, 20th October 2009

There are 1.4 million business pages on Facebook, with an average of 100 fans each

"Facebook doesn't break out figures for small businesses but says it has 1.4 million business "pages," with an average of 100 fans per page. Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in a speech in New York last month that every day, 10 million people become fans of pages. (Many of those pages are for random concepts, such as the beach, or laughter, or even one called "I don't sleep enough because I stay up late for no reason," which has 3.5 million fans.)"
Source: LA Times, 27th October 2009

18% of Japanese company Rakuten's Q1 2009 eCommerce revenues came from mobile

Click to enlarge

Source: Page 50 of Economy + Internet Trends, Morgan Stanley, 20th October 2009
(The whole presentation is brilliant, but particularly the second half, which focusses on Mobile)

Over 20% of US mobile advertising clicks end up at either iTunes of the iPhone App store

"In terms of engagement, Apple’s App Store and iTunes made up 22% of post-click actions- a 6% increase month over month representing the largest increase in September, while “traffic to site” was the primary destination for campaigns in Q3 and represented the destination for approximately 52% of campaigns on average. Sending consumers to mobile Websites and mobile apps remain the most popular campaign outcomes according to the report."
Source: Millennial Media's SMART Report for September 2009, reported by Mobile Marketing Watch, 16th October 2009
See the full SMART report here

YouTube is monetising one billion videos a week

" YouTube is now monetizing over a billion video views a week. Last week, YouTube announced that it was serving over 1 billion video views a day, so if you do the math there, it means that YouTube is monetizing one every seven video views.
The company also noted that 90% of the top 50 advertisers according to AdAge have now run ads on YouTube. And of its homepage ad inventory, 90% of it sold out for the quarter in the U.S., with lower, but still impressive sale rates for the rest of the world. Google also noted that YouTube was just starting to unleash its pre-roll inventory and let its salesforce have a go at selling that to advertisers, which should bring in more money."
Source: Data reported by Google in a thrid quarter earnings call, reported by Techcrunch, 15th October 2009

Nokia's Comes With Music service has 107,000 subscribers worldwide

"CWM ACTIVE VOUCHERS– JULY 2009
UK – 32,728 (launch date: Oct 08)
Singapore – 19,318 (Feb 09)
Australia – 23,003 (Mar 09)
Brazil – 10,809 (Apr 09)
Sweden – 1,101 (Apr 09)
Italy – 691 (Apr 09)
Mexico – 16,344 (May 09)
Germany – 2,673 (May 09)
Switzerland – 560 (Jun 09)"
Source: Musically, 16th October 2009

Google accounts for 6% of al internet traffic globally

"Five years ago, Internet traffic was, for the most part, managed by tier 1 providers like AT&T, Verizon, Level 3 Communications, and Global Crossing, all of which connected to thousands of tier 2 networks and regional providers. Today, that has changed. Now, instead of traffic being distributed among tens of thousands of networks, only 150 networks control some 50% of all online traffic. Among these new Internet superpowers, it's no surprise to find Google listed. In fact, the search giant accounts for the largest source (6%) of all Internet traffic worldwide.
This data comes from a new report put out by Arbor Networks, who has just completed a two-year study of 256 exabytes of Internet traffic data, the largest study of global traffic since the start of the commercial Internet in the mid-1990's."
Source: Arbor Networks report, cited by the New York Times, 13th October 2009
Note - In the original press release here it says that 30 large companies make up 30% of the traffic, and mentions Google and YouTube individually, so this 6% presumably refers to Google entities, and not owned services like YouTube and Blogger

Shazam, the music identification service, has been used by over 50 million people worldwide

"Shazam, the world's leading mobile music discovery provider, today announced that more than 50 million people around the world have used the Shazam service, an increase of 15 million users since February of this year. The phenomenal milestone signifies just how popular the music discovery service has become which is now live in more than 150 countries. "
Source: Shazam press release, 14th October 2009

4 billion photos have been uploaded to Flickr

"On Saturday [10th October 2009], photo number four billion was uploaded to photo sharing site Flickr. This comes just five and a half months after the 3 billionth and nearly 18 months after photo number two billion.
As impressive as four billion photos is, that figure is trounced by Facebook, which reported more than 15 billion photos in its database back in April and currently adds two billion more photos each month."
Source: Mashable, 12th October 2009
(& this is the 4 billionth photo)

The domain name and assets of Insure.com were sold for $16m

"Insure.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: NSUR)announced today that it has sold its Insure.com brand name and related mediaassets for $16 million in cash to QuinStreet, Inc. Insure.com, Inc. (the
Company) intends to change its corporate name to Life Quotes, Inc. and will continue its business under its Life Quotes and Consumer Insurance Guide brand names. The Company will retain all of its remaining balance sheet assets, national brokerage contracts with 25 leading life insurance companies, 50 fully licensed insurance agents, call center operations, customer and prospect lists, and nearly all of its current inbound affiliate and traffic
partnerships.
The Company acquired the Insure.com name and website for $1.6 million in December 2001."
Source: Reuters, 9th October 2009

250,000 - 300,000 live online streams of the England Vs. Ukraine football match were served

"Before the match, Perform had said it would cap the number of streams at one million to preserve the quality of the picture. The actual number of pay-per-view "buys", from £4.99 to £11.99, can be estimated at 250,000‑300,000, although a proportion of those were through a marketing tie-up with the online bookmaker Bet365, which showed the game free to customers with a funded account.
If Sky had shown the game, it might have expected around two million viewers and had it been broadcast on ITV, the audience would probably have peaked at around seven million. Kentaro refused to release a detailed breakdown, claiming the figures are commercially sensitive, so it is impossible to assess how many viewers arrived via newspaper websites and other media partners signed up to promote the match on a revenue-share basis."
Source: The Guardian, 12th October 2009

1.4 billion texts are sent daily in the US in 2009, twice as many as in 2008

"Some 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of 2009 in the U.S. This according to the CTIA’s semiannual wireless industry survey, which helpfully breaks down that astonishing figure to an even more astonishing 4.1 billion texts per day. That’s about double the number sent during the same period last year. And keep in mind, we’re only talking about the United States here, not the rest of the world."
Source: CITA Wireless Industry Survey, reported by Digital Daily, 8th October 2009

YouTube now serves more than 1 billion video views a day

"Three years ago today, Steve and I stood out in front of our offices and jokingly crowned ourselves the burger kings of media. We'd just made headlines by joining with Google in our shared goal of organizing the world's information (in our case, video) and making it easily and quickly accessible to anyone, anywhere. Today, I'm proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you."
Source: YouTube founder Chad Hurley, writing on the YouTube blog, 9th October 2009

US mobile content provider SendMe makes revenues of $10m per month

"Thanks to its subscriber base of more than 1 million youngsters, mainly in their early teens, who pay an average of $9.99 a month, SendMeMobile is making $10 million a month in revenue and has reached profitability. And since sales are rising, it's not a stretch to expect the company to end the year in the range of about $150 million annually.
The company is just three years old. And unlike almost all Silicon Valley companies, SendMe started generating tens of thousands of dollars in revenue the day it launched, stunning investors. It's raised $35 million to date from True Ventures and Spark Capital, and doesn't expect to raise more—ever."
Source: BusinessWeek, 13th July 2009

The UK exports more TV formats than any other country

"Formats like “Deal or No Deal”, “Hole in the Wall” and “Lalola” travel around the world inspiring millions of people. 445 original formats found their way to foreign countries from 2006 to 2008. The number nearly doubled from the first report made on behalf of FRAPA, which analysed the formats traded from 2002 to 2004.
The production volume generated by traded formats has grown to €9.3 billion for the years 2006 to 2008. This is an enormous increase of 45 % in comparison to the first report. The UK still leads in the number of exported formats, followed by the USA, The Netherlands and Argentina."
Source: Press release for The Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA), 6th October 2009

Only one in four registered twitter users is tweeting in any given month

"We know that Twitter has 50 million registered users, but we also know that the vast majority of them have tweeted fewer than ten times. Let's investigate just how many of these registered users are actually actively tweeting.
Using our tweet data, we can identify what percent of the user base sent out at least one tweet in any given month.
[...]
The number seems to hover in the 25% range. In other words, only about 1 in 4 registered users is actually tweeting in any given month. (Although it's worth noting that some users may only be using Twitter to read others' tweets, meaning they are not full-fledged "zombie" accounts.)"
Source: Robert J Moore of RJMetrics, writing in Techcrunch, 5th October 2009, using analysis of 85,000 users and 3 million tweets.
Other stats quoted:
"Twitter's user growth is no longer accelerating. The rate of new user acquisition has plateaued at around 8 million per month.
Over 14% of users don't have a single follower, and over 75% of users have 10 or fewer followers.
38% of users have never sent a single tweet, and over 75% of users have sent fewer than 10 tweets.
Once a user has tweeted once, there is a 65% chance that they will tweet again. After that second tweet, however, the chance of a third tweet goes up to 81%.
If someone is still tweeting in their second week as a user, it is extremely likely that they will remain on Twitter as a long-term user.
Users who joined in more recent months are less likely to stop using the service and more likely to tweet more often than users from the past."

US online ad spend breakdown: Search 47%, Display 34%, Classified 10%, Other 8%

Click to expand

Source: Press release reporting data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), 5th October 2009

American online ad spend was 5% lower in the first half of 2009 than in the first half of 2008

"U.S. Internet advertising revenues [in the first half of 2009] were at $10.9 billion in that period, a 5.3% decline from the same period in 2008.
Search and display-related advertising continue to represent the largest percentages of overall interactive advertising spend. Search revenues amounted to more than $5.1 billion for the first six months of 2009, up slightly from that same period in 2008. Display-related advertising—which includes display ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorship—totaled nearly $3.8 billion in the first six months of 2009, showing a relatively modest 1.1% decline from the same period in 2008. Digital video continues to experience robust growth with a 38% increase from the first half of 2008."
Source: Press release reporting data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), 5th October 2009

44% of American digital video recorder (DVR) owners record five or fewer programs per week

"65% of DVR owners, and 54% of digital cable VOD users, agree (8-10 on a 10 point scale) that they usually watch recorded DVR or on-Demand programs when there is nothing on regularly scheduled TV that they want to watch
In households that have both a DVR and are VOD users, 57% start by watching live TV -- in households that just have a DVR, 68% start with live TV
44% of DVR owners record five or fewer programs per week
85% would recommend their DVR service to a friend (8-10), and 77% highly rate their DVR (8-10)
68% of VOD users who also have a DVR agree (8-10) that their TV service is better because they have both services"
Source: Press release from Leichtman Research Inc, 10th September 2009

36% of American homes own at least one digital video recorder (DVR)

"New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) found that 36% of TV households in the United States have at least one Digital Video Recorder (DVR) -- an increase from just 8% four years ago.
In addition, 63% of all digital cable subscribers have ever used Video on-Demand (VOD), with 88% of this group having watched an on-Demand program or movie in the past month. Overall, about twice as many cable subscribers have used VOD as four years ago"
Source: Press release from Leichtman Research Group Inc, 10th September 2009

12% of American households own an Apple computer, up from 9% in 2008

"According to leading market research company The NPD Group’s 2009 Household Penetration Study, approximately 12 percent of all U.S. computer owning households own an Apple computer, up from 9 percent in 2008. While Apple ownership is growing, those households are decidedly in favor of mixed system environments. Of those 12 percent, nearly 85 percent also own a Windows-based PC.
Multiple computer ownership is a common thread in Apple computer households, with 66 percent of households owning three or more computers, compared to just 29 percent of Windows PC households.
Apple owning households are decidedly more mobile as well, with 72 percent of them owning a notebook, whereas only 50 percent of households that have a Windows PC own a notebook.
Not only do Apple computer owners own more computers (and more mobile computers) than the norm they also tend to own more types of electronics, and more of them, than typical computer owning households. For example, while 36 percent of total computer owning households have an iPod, 63 percent of Apple households have one. And while almost 50 percent of Apple owners own some type of navigation system, only about 30 percent of all computer households own one."
Source: Press release from NPD Group, 5th October 2009

$580 million was invested in advertising technology companies in the first half of 2008

Ad Tech Paul Fisher

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Source: Chart 8 of this presentation by Advent Ventures, 2008

Singer T Pain has sold 300,000 iPhone apps at $2.99 each in 3 weeks

"In the first 3 weeks alone, the application has seen 300,000 downloads. The average user spends around 66 minutes within the application — an absolutely ludicrous number for any app, much less one out of the entertainment category. To date, 4.1 million performances have been recorded within the application."
Source: Mobile Crunch, 1st October 2009

17% of the time Americans spend online is on social networking and blogging sites

"The Nielsen Company today reported that time spent on social network and blogging sites accounted for 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009, nearly triple the percentage of time spent on the sector a year ago."
Note - this excludes video sharing sites like YouTube, which are effectively social sites, so the total percentage of time spent on social media sites would be much higher
Source: The Nielsen Company, as reported in a press release, 23rd September 2009

367 US hospitals use social media tools

"367 Hospitals total
186 YouTube Channels
190 Facebook pages
267 Twitter Accounts
35 Blogs"
Source: Ed Bennett, a hospital web manager, on his blog, last updated 21st September 2009

Half as many US internet users click on ads as did 2 years ago

"The collaborative studies focus on an understanding of how U.S. Internet users click on display ads. The updated results based on March 2009 comScore data, and presented by comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni and Kim McCarthy, manager, Research & Analytics at Starcom, at the iMedia Brand Summit in San Diego on September 14, 2009, indicated that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32 percent of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16 percent in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8 percent of the Internet user base) accounting for the vast majority (85 percent) of all clicks.
[...]
The original research, conducted using July 2007 comScore data, showed that 32 percent of Internet users clicked on at least one display ad during the month. These clickers were segmented into Heavy, Moderate and Light Clicking segments based on the group of users accounting for the top 50 percent of clicks (heavy), middle 30 percent (moderate), and bottom 20 percent (light). In 2007, comScore, Starcom and Tacoda found that heavy clickers represented 6 percent of U.S. Internet users, moderate clickers accounted for 10 percent and light clickers accounted for 16 percent. By March 2009, those numbers had dropped substantially in each case, to 4 percent of Internet users for heavy clickers, 4 percent for moderate clickers and 8 percent for light clickers."
Source: Natural Born Clickers report by comScore, Starcom USA and Tacoda, reported in a press release, 1st October 2009

More than 20% of Japanese internet users are online for >6 hours on their days off

"Concerning these results 98.3% of Japanese have a fixed internet connection at home and over 70% use internet at home more than 1h every day. When it comes to holidays or days off astonishing 22% of Japanese become hardcore internet users with a usage of more than 6h per day. About 25% of these hardcore users surf the web even more than 12h per day off. Compared to the last survey end of 2008 the heavy users ratio increase by more than 1%"
Source: Research from Japan.Internet.com & Goo Research, reported by the Cyber Media blog, 1st October 2009

73% of Blackberry owners have downloaded 5 or fewer apps; 72% of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more apps

"73 percent of Blackberry owners have downloaded 5 or fewer applications; in contrast, 72 percent of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more applications
Facebook is hot among iPhone owners: 71 percent of iPhone users report accessing Facebook from their mobile device, 37 percent listed Facebook as one of their top three most utilized apps and 18 percent claim it’s their favorite app.
30 percent of all smartphone owners are either comfortable or very comfortable receiving targeted marketing on their device."
Source: Quarterly Smartphone Intelligence Survey, reported in a press release from Conpete Inc, 10th September 2009

UK online ad spend breakdown: Search 63%, Classified 19%, Display 18%

"Paid-for search continued to grow, proving itself a mainstay of marketing budgets with an 11.8% increase from H1 2008 to H1 2009. As the purest form of direct response advertising, search is proving recession-friendly with marketers investing £1.1bn during H1 2009, which equates to 62.6% of all online advertising expenditure.
Total online classified spend was £335.8m in H1 2009 – or 19.2% of all online ad spend – and saw a slight decline of 3.6% in this period. However within this ‘further classifieds’, increased by 29% despite the property market crash and stalled automotive sector to £215.2m, promising news for the industry
Online display was down 5.2% year on year to £316.5m, with an 18.1% share of all online advertising revenues. Online display buoyed a tough year as all other mainstream media saw a double digit decline. "
Source: Figures from the IAB / PwC for January - June 2009, reported in their press release on 30th September 2009

The internet now accounts for 23.5% of UK ad spend, compared to 21.9% for TV

"The UK has become the first major economy where advertisers spend more on internet advertising than on television advertising, with a record £1.75bn online spend in the first six months of the year.
The milestone marks a watershed for the embattled TV industry, the leading ad medium in the UK for almost half a century. It has taken the internet little more than a decade to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK.
UK advertisers spent £1.75bn on internet advertising in the six months to the end of June, a 4.6% year-on-year increase, according to a report by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. To put this in perspective, in 1998, when the IAB first measured internet advertising, just £19.4m was spent online.
The internet now accounts for 23.5% of all advertising money spent in the UK, while TV ad spend accounts for 21.9% of marketing budgets."
Source: Figures from the IAB / PwC for January - June 2009, reported by The Guardian, 30th September 2009

Americans who use social networks are more affluent than the national average

"If you’re in the U.S. and are using a social network like Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, chances are you’re more affluent and more urban than the average American according to Nielsen Claritas, which provides in-depth segmentation analysis of consumer behavior.
“Nielsen’s online data shows that about half of the U.S. population visited a social networking website in the last year and that number grows every quarter,” said Wils Corrigan, AVP, Research & Development, Nielsen Claritas. “The rising popularity of these sites and the deep engagement consumers have with them has advertisers and marketers asking for more and more detail as to which lifestyles should be targeted for their online advertising and promotions.”
Through Claritas, Nielsen defines U.S. households in terms of 66 demographically and behaviorally distinct segments like “Young Digerati” or “Beltway Boomers.” When those segments are overlaid with the activity of Nielsen’s online panel of more than 200K, we see a marked difference in the demographic makeup of the two largest social networks, Facebook and MySpace.
Facebook users have a largely upscale profile. The top third of lifestyle segments relative to affluence were 25% more likely to use Facebook than those in the those in the lower third.
The bottom third segments related to affluence are 37% more likely to use MySpace than those in the top third.
Users of Facebook were also much more likely to use LinkedIn, a network geared towards business and professional networking, than those who use MySpace."
Source: NielsenWire blog, 25th September 2009