YouTube has a reach of 34% in the UK

"YouTube's weekly reach (34%) is comparable to major TV channels in the UK such as SkyOne
Weekly reach is higher amongst certain target audiences, such as affluent young males (54%)
YouTube users (particularly heavy YouTube users) are more likely to be light TV viewers than average
YouTube reaches a broad spectrum of audiences
YouTube delivers its audiences spread right across the day, not just during traditional TV hours"
Source: Joint research by YouTube and TNS, reported on the Google Barometer blog, 25th August 2009

Apple has 91% market share in the US for computers costing over $1,000, but only 8% share overall

"According to NPD, in June, nine out of 10 dollars spent on computers costing $1,000 or more went to Apple. Mac revenue market share in the "premium" price segment was 91 percent, up from 88 percent in May."
Source: NPD, reported by betanews, 22nd July 2009
Overall market share:
"Apple's share of the US computer market fell to 8 percent during the fourth calendar quarter of 2008 from 9.5 percent in the third as the Mac maker surrendered its third place ranking to surging netbook maker Acer, according to market research firm Gartner."
Source: Gartner, reported by AppleInsider, 14th January 2009
(If you have any more up to date figures please let me know!)

Android and iPhone users download 9-10 new apps per month; iPod Touch users download 18

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Source: Page 11 of AdMob iPhone and Android App Discovery and Usage, August 2009

Universal Music in Sweden makes more revenue from Spotify than from iTunes

"“In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes”, said Per Sundin, head of Universal in Sweden. “It’s a fantastic development explained by the fact that Spotify really has exploded”"
Source: The Swedish Wire, 10th August 2009

Over 118 million avatars have been created for the video game Spore by it's players

Source: Official 'Sporepedia' site retrieved 27th August 2009 (see the box in the top left hand side for the most up to date figure)

Players of the video game LittleBigPlanet have created over 1 million of their own levels

"Each week the data-miners in our IT department here at Sackboy Central send us a big spreadsheet full of numbers. Some of the numbers mention stuff like “concurrency” and “peak measures”, which are all very nice, although not, for the most part, tremendously exciting. But there is one number in particular that we’ve always kept a close eye on: the number of levels uploaded by the LittleBigPlanet community. And this week, that number became awesome indeed. The community has now uploaded over one million levels.
One. Million. Levels.
Amazing, isn’t it? Just think, this means that a new level has been published roughly every 21 seconds since LittleBigPlanet launched."
Source: Playstation blog, 22nd July 2009

Chris Brown's song Forever went top 5 in the download charts after appearing in the user generated video JK Wedding Entrance

"In the last week, over a year after its release, Chris Brown's "Forever" has again rocketed up the charts, reaching as high as #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon's best selling MP3 list."
Source: Google blog, 30th July 2009

Google offers 1 million free eBooks for download

"I'm excited to announce that starting today, Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in an additional format, EPUB. By adding support for EPUB downloads, we're hoping to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places. More people are turning to new reading devices to access digital books, and many such phones, netbooks, and e-ink readers have smaller screens that don't readily render image-based PDF versions of the books we've scanned. EPUB is a lightweight text-based digital book format that allows the text to automatically conform (or "reflow") to these smaller screens. And because EPUB is a free, open standard supported by a growing ecosystem of digital reading devices, works you download from Google Books as EPUBs won't be tied to or locked into a particular device. We'll also continue to make available these books in the popular PDF format so you can see images of the pages just as they appear in the printed book."
Source: Google Books blog, 26th August 2009

AdMob has served over 100 billion mobile ads

"We’ve just reached another exciting milestone here at AdMob… over 100 billion ads served!"
Source: AdMob blog, 10th August 2009

Almost as many people respond to online display advertising by searching as do by clicking

"Despite considerable speculation about the relationship between search engine marketing and online display advertising over the years, the findings from this new study indicate that the two channels have a closer relationship than many marketers may have thought. In fact, the study shows that Internet users initially respond to the medium as follows: 31% respond by directly clicking on an ad; 27% respond by searching for the product, brand, or company by launching a search on a search engine; 21% respond by typing the company Web address into their browser and directly navigating to the website; and 9% respond by investigating the product, brand, or company through social media venues. Overall, 52% of Internet users actively respond to online display advertising."
Source: Study conducted by Search Marketing agency iProspect, reported in a press release, 11th May 2009

65% of mums in the UK with internet use it as their first point of call for information

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Source: Yahoo! Mums Online report, August 2009

Younger US teens are more likely to own a portable gaming device than a mobile phone

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Source: Page 13 of Teens and Mobile Phones Over the Past 5 Years, Pew Internet, August 2009

41% of tweets can be classified as 'pointless babble'

Breakdown of contents, based on a random sample of 2,000 tweets:
"News - 3.60%
Spam - 3.75%
Self-promotion - 5.85%
Pointless babble - 40.55%
Conversational - 37.55%
Pass-along value - 8.70%"

Classification was as follows:
"News
Any sort of main stream news that you might find on your national news stations such as CNN, Fox or others. This did not include tech news or social media news that you might find on TechCrunch or Mashable.
Spam
These are the tweets such as “See how I got 3,000 followers in one day” type of tweets.
Self-Promotion
These are typical corporate tweets about products, services, or “Twitter only” promos.
Pointless Babble
These are the “I am eating a sandwich now” tweets.
Conversational
These are tweets that go back and forth between folks, almost in an instant message fashion, as well as tweets that try to engage followers in conversation, such as questions or polls.
Pass-Along Value
These are any tweets with an “RT” in it.
Now, if there were any tweets that could fit into more than one category (which was rare), if it started with “@”, we deemed it as conversational, even if it was a news item or self-promotion."
Source: Pages 4&5 of Pear Analytics twitter Study, August 2009

Only 27% of US visitors to twitter are regular users

"Twitter reaches 27 million people per month in the U.S.
55% are female
43% are between 18 and 34
78% Caucasian, but African American users are 35% above Internet average
Average household income is between $30 and $60k
1% of the addicts contribute 35% of the visits
72% are passers by, while only 27% are regular users"
Source: Page 3 of Pear Analytics twitter Study, August 2009

Membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in Q2 2009

"The consultancy kzero.co.uk reports that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39% in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million."
Source: Kzero, quoted by The Guardian, 29th July 2009
More data:
"Almost all of the 39% growth came from children. Girls used to grow up with their dolls; now they are growing up with their avatars. This goes largely unreported because the users don't read newspapers, but as Kzero reports, poptropica.com – aimed at five- to 10-year-olds – has 76 million registered users. If you move up to 10- to 15-year-olds, users rival the populations of countries – led by Habbo (135 million), Neopets (54 million), Star Dolls (34 million) and Club Penguin (28 million). It starts tailing off among 15- to 25-year-olds – apart from Poptropica (35 million) – but it underlines the likelihood that as youngsters get older they will be looking for more sophisticated outlets and for ways to link existing social networks such as Facebook or MySpace to more immersive virtual worlds."

Approximately 12% of Americans bought virtual goods in the last 12 months

"Roughly 12 percent of Americans, or more than one in 10, have bought a virtual item at some point in the last 12 months, according to a new study by analyst firm Frank N. Magid Associates and commissioned by virtual currency provider PlaySpan. With the virtual goods and currency market estimated to reach $1.8 billion this year"
Source: Frank N. Magid Associates, as reported by Gigaom, 30th July 2009

CD and hard drive music collections of 14-24s in the UK compared

"The average digital music collection - ie all the music on a respondent’s computer or hard drive - was 8,159 tracks. (If we equate a single track as being 3 minutes in length, that's approximately 17 days' worth of continuous music.)"
On the other hand:
"Respondents still exhibit a strong desire to "own" music and most still purchase CDs.
Only a small number of respondents (4%) do not use CDs at all and 51% have fewer than 100 CDs (both original and copied).
The average collection was 70 CDs for the 14-17's and 98 CDs for the 18-24 age group - a significant increase on 2008's figures."
Source: UK Music survey pdf, 10th August 2009

Over 50% of 14-24 year olds living in the UK use P2P networks or torrent trackers to download music on a daily or weekly level

"Popularity of P2P remains unchanged since 2008 – 61% said they download music using P2P networks or torrent trackers. Of this group, 83% are doing so on a weekly or daily basis"
(83% of 61% = 50.6%)
Source: UK Music survey, 10th August 2009

86% of 14-24 year olds in the UK have copied a CD for a friend

"86% of respondents have copied a CD for a friend; 75% have sent music by email, Bluetooth, Skype or MSN; 57% have copied a friend's entire music collection; 39% have downloaded music from an online storage site; and 38% have ripped a TV, radio or internet stream"
Source: UK Music survey, 10th August 2009

100 million videos have been watched online through the PS3 since June 2009

"The videogame console used to be about one thing - playing games. Of course, they still are, though the action is now adorned by lots of different content and connectivity options - all at the touch of a controller. That includes the PS3, now home to a streaming music video collection powered by VidZone. The VidZone app, available since June from the PlayStation Store, has already served 100 million vids according to numbers shared by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe."
Source: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 5th August 2009

900,000 American homes relied solely on the web for TV in 2008

"Some 900,000 U.S. homes didn't pay for TV and relied solely on Web TV last year, according to estimates from consulting firm Parks Associates, which projects that the number will grow this year. And 8% of adults now view television shows online at least once a week, up from 6% who did so in 2008, according to a survey by the Leichtman Research Group. The same survey found that 8% of adults who watch video online now watch TV less often."
Source: Parks Associates, cited by the Wall Street Journal, 28th May 2009

71% of 16-24s and 66% of 25-44s have access to a games console at home

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Source: Page 307 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

Over 95% of singles sales in the UK are digital

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Source: Entertainment Retailers’ Association yearbook 2009, cited on page 280 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

66% of 15-24s in the UK think that it is morally acceptable to download music for free

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Source: Youth and Music survey 2009, Human Capital/Marrakesh Records, cited on page 278 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

Nearly one quarter of UK households use the internet to watch catch-up TV

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Source: Page 267 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

99 billion text mesages were sent per month in the UK in 2008

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Source: Page 255 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

92% of UK households have a mobile phone, 87% have fixed line, and 70% have internet access

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& only 5% of households now only have a dial up connection.

Source: Page 247 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

3G accounts for 23% of all mobile subscriptions in the UK

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Source: Page 233 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

Nearly 45% of all phone calls made in the UK are on a mobile phone

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Source: Page 224 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

More than one in seven handsets sold in the UK is a smartphone

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Source: Page 210 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

Uptake of mobile broadband in the UK is highest amongst 25-34s

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Source: Page 208 of Ofcom Communications Market report, August 2009
More information here

Netflix has 10.6m subscribers in the US

"There are 58 Netflix warehouses nationwide, serving 10.6 million subscribers, and only one for greater Chicago."
Other facts elswhere in the article:
60,000 discs are shipped daily in the Chicago area alone
Netflix owns 89m discs
Source: How Netflix Gets Movies to your Mailbox So Fast, Chicago Tribune, 4th August 2009

American marketing services company Acxiom estimates it holds 1,500 pieces of information on every American

"For decades, data companies like Experian and Acxiom have compiled reams of information on every American: Acxiom estimates it has 1,500 pieces of data on every American, based on information from warranty cards, bridal and birth registries, magazine subscriptions, public records and even dog registrations with the American Kennel Club."
Source: New York Times, 30th July 2009