An estimated 30m people have tried Facebook Places

"About 30 million people have tried Facebook places, a single source who works with Facebook tells us.
Reached for a response to this number, Facebook rep Larry Yu told us, "[I] don't have any guidance to offer right now, I'm afraid."
Not a denial.
Anyway, our source's number sounds reasonable to us."
Source:  Business Insider, 29th October 2010

Spotify paid out €30m in revenues to music rights holders in the first 8 months of 2010

"How much money is streaming music service Spotify generating for the music industry?
According to figures shared with Music Ally by the company, its payouts to rightsholders have topped €40 million since it launched in October 2008. That’s based on streams of songs across its seven European territories.
However, €30 million of those were paid in the first eight months of 2010, as usage of Spotify has grown sharply. That could be boiled down to €3.75 million a month, but Music Ally understands that the figure was much lower at the start of 2010, and much higher now."
Source:  Figures from Spotify, revealed to Music Ally, 28th October 2010

VidZone, Sony Playstation's music video service, has delevered more than 500 million video views

"VidZone, the free music video service for users of PlayStation, has delivered more than half a billion videos to 3.7 million fans in eighteen countries from its catalogue of 30,000 videos and recently launch 120 pre-programmed channels, serving up three billion ad impressions in the process."
Source:  Figures from VidZone, reported by CMU, 29th October 2010

iPad demographics vs. Kindle demographics (US data)

"Apple iPad users are younger and more of them are male than those of other connected devices
- 65% are male, 63% are under the age of 35
- Kindle users: 52% male, 47% under the age of 35
- Amazon Kindle users are slightly wealthier, better educated
- 28% have incomes of $100k or more, 57% have a bachelors degree or higher
- Pad users: 25% have incomes of $100k or more, 51% have a bachelors degree or higher"
Source:  The Increasingly Connected Consumer: Connected Devices, The Nielsen Company, October 2010 (pdf)

A comparison of the content accessed over the iPhone and the iPad

Click to enlarge

Source:  The Nielsen Company, 21st October 2010

The internet is worth £100 billion a year to the British economy

"The internet is worth £100bn a year to the UK economy, a study has concluded.

The research, which was commissioned by Google, found that the internet accounts for 7.2% of the UK's gross domestic product (GDP).

If the internet was an economic sector it would be the UK's fifth largest, said the report from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

This would make the sector larger than the construction, transport and utilities industries.

Some 60% of the £100bn a year figure is made up from internet consumption - the amount that users spend on online shopping and on the cost of their connections and devices to access the web.

The rest comes from investment in the UK's internet infrastructure, government IT spending and net exports."

Source: Research commissioned by Google, and reported by BBC News, 28th October 2010
Full report here
Report website here

UK mobile network 3 carries more than 100 terabytes of data each day

"Three’s network now carries more than 100 terabytes of data a day across it – or roughly 20-times the amount of information held in Wikipedia. Of this more than 40% is made up of people streaming media from sites like BBC iPlayer and Youtube, 38% is from web browsing, including web downloads, and close to 6% is from people updating Microsoft software. In addition about 2.5% is now made up of people messaging each other, such as via Skype or MSN."

Source: Press release from Three Mobile, 14th October 2010

The Xbox 360 outsold every other gaming console in the US in Q3 2010

"Microsoft Corp. today announced record first-quarter revenue of $16.20 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2010, a 25% increase from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $7.12 billion, $5.41 billion and $0.62 per share, which represented increases of 59%, 51% and 55%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.
[...]
During the quarter, Microsoft saw year-over-year growth across all business segments. Among the highlights are these:
- Office 2010 is off to a fast start with revenue growing over 15% in its first full quarter in market.
- Microsoft continues to see a healthy and sustaining business PC refresh cycle.
- Xbox 360 consoles grew 38%, outselling every competing console in the U.S. for each of the past four months.
- For yet another quarter, Bing continued to grow market share, while achieving major milestones in implementing Microsoft’s partnership with Yahoo."
Source:  Press Release from Microsoft, 28th October 2010

Kindle versions of books are outselling print editions (hardback and paperback) for the top 1000 best sellers on Amazon in the US

"Kindle book unit sales continue to overtake print on Amazon.com, even while print book sales continue to grow. During the past 30 days, Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than print books--hardcover and paperback combined--for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com.
"For the top 10 bestselling books on Amazon.com, customers are choosing Kindle books over hardcover and paperback books combined at a rate of greater than 2 to 1. Kindle books are also outselling print books for the top 25, 100, and 1,000 bestsellers--it's across the board," said Kessel. "This is remarkable when you consider that we've been selling hardcover and paperback books for 15 years, and Kindle books for just 36 months."
Other recent milestones for Kindle include:
- In the 12 weeks following the introduction of the new generation Kindles, Kindle devices or Kindle-related items such as Kindle books and covers represented 15 of the top 15 bestselling items on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk combined.
- Amazon sold more than 3 times as many Kindle books in the first nine months of 2010 as in the first nine months of 2009.
- The Association of American Publishers' latest data reports that e-book sales grew 193 percent between January and August 2010. Kindle book sales growth during the same period exceeded this rate."

Source:  Press release from Amazon, 25th October 2010

Posts made on Facebook at 3pm on a Wednesday are the most likely to generate reactions

"A new report from Vitrue has analyzed data on Facebook to determine when is the best time of day to make a post. After studying more than 1.6 million posts, 7.56 million comments and 1,500 brand streams, it boils down to this: Wednesday at 3PM ET.
It is, Vitrue, said the consistently busiest period. In general, it found that  the best usage period were 11 AM, 3 PM and 8 PM ET."
Source:  Research from Vitrue, reported by MarketingVox, 28th October 2010

Google represents an average 6.4% of all Internet traffic around the world

"Google now represents an average 6.4% of all Internet traffic around the world. This number grows even larger (to as much as 8-12%) if I include estimates of traffic offloaded by the increasingly common Google Global Cache (GGC) deployments and error in our data due to the extremely high degree of Google edge peering with consumer networks. Keep in mind that these numbers represent increased market share — Google is growing considerably faster than overall Internet volumes which are already increasing 40-45% each year. More data on general Internet growth trends is available in some of our earlier papers and blog posts.
While its not news that Google is Big, what is amazing is how much bigger Google continues to get.
A quick analysis of the data also shows Google now has direct peering (i.e. not transit) with more than 70% of all providers around the world (an increase of 5-10% from last year). In fact, the only remaining major group of ISPs without direct Google peering are several of the tier1s and national PTTs — many of whom will not settlement-free peer with Google due to regulatory prohibitions or commercial strategy."
Source:  Arbor Networks, 25th October 2010

The Top 25 brand sites on Facebook, by the number of 'Likes'

"1. Starbucks (16,032,409)
2. Coca Cola (15,095,389)
3. Oreo (12,085,126)
4. Skittles (11,508,441)
5. Red Bull (10,198,875)
6. Victoria’s Secret (8,429,334)
7. Disney (8,394,141)
8. Converse All Star (7,366,892)
9. iTunes (7,071,721)
10. MTV (7,043,056)
11. Zara (6,063,583)
12. Pringles (5,762,518)
13. NBA (5,616,388)
14. Starburst (5,380,056)
15. Nutella (5,208,281)
16. Dr Pepper (5,164,646)
17. Monster Energy (4,916,536)
18. Adidas Originals (4,804,224)
19. H&M (4,520,070)
20. Ferrero Rocher (4,424,751)
21. McDonalds (3,795,486)
22. Playstation (3,683,751)
23. Xbox (3,447,690)
24. Taco Bell (3,399,860)
25. Puma (2,712,075)"
Source:  Compiled by TNW Social Media, 25th October 2010

The Top 30 British brands on twitter by number of followers

"1. Topshop @Topshop_Tweets (99,852 followers)
2. Burberry @burberry (64,128)
3. ASOS  @ASOS (56,838)
4. Comparethemeerkat.com with Aleksandr Orlov (Comparethemarket.com) @Aleksandr_Orlov (41,356)
5. O2 @O2 (31,270)
6. Innocent Drinks @innocentdrinks (30,952)
7. British Airways @British_Airways (24,374)
8. Virgin Atlantic @VirginAtlantic (18,050)
9. Selfridges @Selfridges (17,752)
10. Vodafone  @vodafoneuk (16,842)
11. Nando’s @Nandos_Official (15,732)
12. Heathrow Airport @heathrowairport (14,971)
13. Virgin Media @VirginMedia (14,422)
14. New Look @NewLookFashion (13,040)
15. Westfield London @westfieldlondon (11,404)
16. Lovefilm.com @lovefilm (11,217)
17. Dell Small Business News @DellSMBnews (10,699)
18. Topman @topmanuk (9,299)
19. Samsung @samsungukmobile (8,698)
20. Asda @asda (8,114)
21. H&M @hmunitedkingdom (7,688)
22. Harvey Nichols @harvey_nichols (7,461)
23. T Mobile @tmobileofficial (6,687)
24. Cath Kidston @cath_kidston (6,393)
25. Skittles @skittles (6,168)
26. Honda @honda_uk (5,570)
27. Sony Ericsson @sonyericssonuk (5,259)
28. Dorothy Perkins @dorothy_perkins (4,948)
29. Sage @sageuk (4,717)
30. Waitrose @waitroseuk (4,538)
Source:  compiled by Sutro Digital, 25th October 2010
[Note - these are global followers of companies with either a mainly British presence, British branches of global companies, or thought of as British]
See their site for any corrections and updates!

Nearly 60% of AT&T's non-prepay customers have a smartphone

"In announcing its third-quarter earnings today, AT&T said that it activated more than 8 million smartphones over the past quarter, and a hefty 5.2 million of those devices were iPhones--"the most iPhone activations ever in a quarter," the carrier said. During the second quarter of 2010, AT&T activated 3.2 million iPhones.
The latest version of Apple's smartphone, the iPhone 4, went on sale just days before the start of the third quarter. Earlier this week, in reporting on its most recent fiscal quarter, Apple said that worldwide sales of the iPhone doubled from the same period a year earlier.
AT&T said that nearly one-quarter of all iPhone activations during the third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, came from new customers.
Beyond that, 57.3 percent of the company's "postpaid subscribers" have a smartphone. A year ago, that figure stood at just 42 percent. The company also added 2.6 million net subscribers, pushing its total to 92.8 million."
Source:  AT&T Q3 earnings statement, reported by CNET News, 21st October 2010

Lady Gaga's videos have had over 1 billion views on YouTube

"Taking to her Twitter account Sunday morning to thank her fans for helping to drive up the number of views of her various music videos on YouTube, the provocative pop singer announced: "We reached 1 Billion views on youtube little monsters! If we stick together we can do anything. I dub u kings and queens of youtube! Unite!"
Although the eccentric singer-songwriter, whose birth name is Stefani Germanotta, is the first artist to reach the YouTube milestone, sources predict that she may not hold the title for much longer than a week.
Fellow pop star Justin Bieber is trailing close behind the "Bad Romance" singer with 962,726,797 total video views and is poised to reach one million hits by November 1. The Canadian singer already holds the YouTube record for most views of a single video for his hit "Baby," which on Sunday afternoon displayed a total of 365,643,608 views."
Source:  Hollywood Reporter, 24th October 2010
See Lady Gaga's Tweet here

A 'share' of an event is worth an average of $1.78 in ticket sales to Eventbright

"The study by Eventbrite found that, on average, every time an event was shared that resulted in $1.78 in ticket sales. Drilling down into this number shows how valuable different types of share are:
1 - Facebook: $2.52. Facebook resulted in the highest average ticket sales per share with every ‘Like’ on the social network resulting in $2.52 in ticket sales. That this is the most valuable type of share is not surprising – Facebook has grown with events and users are accustomed to inviting people to or accepting events on the platform. Overall this is a very important driver of traffic and sales for Eventbrite – it is the sites biggest referrer of traffic and every ‘Like’ drives 11 visits back to the site.

2 - Email: $2.34. The second most valuable sharing mechanism was not a social media tool at all, but email. This is not surprising – email is likely to be much more targeted as users need to select individual people with whom they want to share the event, rather than just publicising it to all people they connect with in a social network. That this is not the most valuable type of sharing is a surprise and shows the ever increasing power of Facebook and other social networks as a communications and sharing mechanism.
3 - LinkedIn: $0.90. LinkedIn shares are the third most valuable with an average of $0.90 in ticket sales generated every time an event is shared on the social network. This is much less than for shares on Facebook or via email but is still significant driver of sales.
4 - Twitter: $0.43. Shares on Twitter are the least valuable of all four means, with each share worth $0.43 – almost a sixth the value of a Like on Facebook. This is, perhaps, a sign that connections on Twitter are less focused than on Facebook, or perhaps that on Twitter shares and messages are less engaged with – indeed recent research from Sysomos showed that over 70% of all Tweets get no response. So Twitter messages may be less engaging than those on Facebook, leading to fewer clicks and so fewer ticket sales.
Source:  Research by Eventbright, reported by FreshNetworks, 21st October 2010

Sony has sold 400m Walkmans; 50% are cassette-based models

"The first Walkman was produced in 1979. The picture shows the TPS-L2, the world’s first portable (mass-produced) stereo, which went on sale in Japan on July 1 that year and was later exported to the US, Europe and other places. Sony says that they managed to sell over 400 million Walkmans worldwide until March 2010, and exactly 200,020,000 of those were cassette-based models."
Source:  Crunchgear, 22nd October 2010

Access to mobile networks is now available to 90% of the world population

"By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940 million subscriptions to 3G services.
Access to mobile networks is now available to 90% of the world population and 80% of the population living in rural areas.
People are moving rapidly from 2G to 3G platforms, in both developed and developing countries.
In 2010, 143 countries were offering 3G services commercially, compared to 95 in 2007.
Towards 4G: a number of countries have started to offer services at even higher broadband speeds, moving to next generation wireless platforms – they include Sweden, Norway, Ukraine and the United States."
Source:  The World in 2010, ITU, October 2010 (pdf)

Foursquare has 4 million users, and has quadrupled in size since March 2010

"Testimony for that comes from Foursquare, which has now passed four million users, according to co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. In a conversation earlier today, Dennis said that it took a mere 50 days for them to grab a million additional users. The location-based service hit the 3 million mark in August 2010. It’s clear that Foursquare is starting to see a network effect — the more people sign-up, the faster it grows.
Foursquare hit the one million user mark in March 2010, a year after the service launched. The company has been making feature additions to the service that allow it to attract a more mainstream audience, and in an interview earlier this year, Dennis shared with me his grand ambitions of marrying the social web and location. Getting to 4 Million users is only part of that grand scheme."
Source:  GigaOM, 21st October 2010

Spotify has 10m subscribers, including nearly 650,000 paying subscribers

"[A]ccording to information shared this week by European sources, Spotify's premium subscriber total is now approaching 650,000.  The information comes from internal updates that Spotify issues to it content partners, which sources agreed to discuss with Digital Music News.    
One source pegged the number at "between 640,000 and 650,000," though the trajectory is obvious.  In mid-July, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek disclosed a premium total of 500,000, and topline registered users recently surpassed 10 million."
Source:  DigitalMusicNews, 21st October 2010

Health is the most talked about topic online

"The top ten most talked about topics are:
1. Health 14%
2. Games 13%
3. Auto & Moto 10%
4. IT & Tech 9%
5. Sports 8%
6. Home & Recreation 8%
7. Music 4%
8. Cinema 3%
9. Love & Family 3%
10. Women 3% "
Source:  Research from Synthesio, reported by BizReport, 19th October 2010

37% of UK mobile phone users have used their phone to purchase a product or service direct to their phone bill

"New research from the Internet Advertising Bureau – the trade association for online and mobile advertising – reveals that mobile commerce has already become widely adopted in the UK, with 51% of mobile owners (23 million people) using their device to make payments, redeem coupons or research products and services. The study shows once again the urgent need for retailers to catch up with the mobile consumer and enhance the user experience to ensure they don’t miss out on sales.
The study – based on a nationally representative sample of over 1000 mobile owners and carried out by work research - was designed to investigate genuine consumer engagement with m-commerce in the UK. It found that 43% of respondents had used mobile to conduct research for a purchase, whilst 40% have used their mobile phone to check shop details such as contact information, location and opening hours. Usability was found to be key, with those who find research easy 16% more likely to make a purchase than those who don’t.
The study shows just how significant the mobile phone now is within the path to purchase, as well as how increasingly sophisticated mobile consumer behaviour has become, showing that:
Consumers are buying already. 37% of people have used their mobile to purchase a service/product direct to their phone bill. Within this, 32% have paid for downloaded content, 21% have used a shortcode to pay for a product/service, and 13% entered a phone number to pay for a product/service."
Source:  Press release from the IAB, re-produced in full by Mobile Europe blog, 18th October 2010

Rapper Sean Combs' involvement has increased sales of Ciroc vodka from 120,000 cases p.a. to 400,000 p.a. in 2 years

"Sales were modest in its first few years on the market. Then, in late 2007, Diageo inked a marketing deal with Sean “P Diddy” Combs, the US rap star.
Mr Combs, who is also a music producer and actor with a brand of urban casual wear, has a wide following in the African-American community. He became more than a frontman for Ciroc. In exchange for a 50-50 split of the profits on Ciroc sales, he developed the branding and positioning for the vodka.
The results were remarkable, says Jim Mosely, senior vice-president for consumer planning at Diageo. “Only twice in my career have I seen an immediate response in our brand tracking,” he says of the jump in visibility Ciroc enjoyed after the announcement of the partnership with Mr Combs.
“We saw it really take off in the African-American community, and it has started to broaden its appeal. Throughout the entire economic recession, it was one of the few brands that never slowed down.”
In the first six months of 2007, before Mr Combs signed on, Diageo sold 60,000 cases of Ciroc. The following year, sales grew to approximately 169,000. In the full year ended June 2009, volume spiked to 400,000 cases. Sales rose another 48 per cent in fiscal 2010, according to Diageo’s earnings statements."
Source:  Figures from Diageo, reported by the Financial Times, 20th October 2010
[Note - I've extrapolated the 60,000 cases for the first half of 2007 to 120,000 cases p.a.]

The sex.com internet domain has been sold for $13m

"The sex.com internet domain has been sold for $13m (£8.2m)
The domain was put up for auction in July 2010 when its former owner, Escom LLC, went bankrupt.
Clover Holdings, an obscure company registered on the Caribbean island of St Vincent, put in the highest bid for the domain.
The sex.com domain has changed hands several times and at one time was under the control of a conman who stole it from its original owner.
The sale will only be final if it wins approval from the bankruptcy court overseeing Escom LLC's affairs. The court will make that decision on 27 October."
Source:  BBC News, 21st October 2010

Netflix has 16.9m subscribers in the US

"In the third quarter, Netflix saw a 52 percent gain in subscribers to 16.9 million. Revenue increased 31 percent to $553 million. But most interesting: 66 percent of subscribers watched more than 15 minutes of streaming video compared with 41 percent during the same period last year. The company predicted Wednesday that in the fourth quarter, a majority of Netflix subscribers would watch more content streamed from the Web on Netflix than on DVD."
Source:  Netflix financial results for Q3 2010, reported by The Washington Post, 21st October 2010

60% of Apple's sales are from products that didn't exist 3 years ago

Click to enlarge

Source:  Apple data, via the ThinkingAloud blog, 20th October 2010

With sales of 250 million, the Nokia 1100 is the world's most popular mobile handset

"One summer in 2005, a man in Nigeria wanted in. He found a shop, put his money down on the counter, and left with a cellphone: a Nokia 1100, nearly identical to the model discontinued by AT&T that same year. Statistically, this was likely his first handset. He'd probably used a similar one through family or friends. Personal milestone or not, the tiny Clarkian miracle of that day represented a cold milestone for Nokia. It was their billionth phone sold.
In buying that phone, this man was joining a slightly smaller club. He became a Nokia 1100 user. Along with a staggering 250,000,000 others, he had traded up in the communications world, from little or no phone access at all to this little brick of a phone."
Source:  Gizmodo, 19th October 2010

Avatar is the most successful cinema film ever at the Chinese box office

"China is already the world’s second-largest economy - within five years, it may be the world’s second-largest cinema market too, leaping above Japan and India in terms of box office receipts.
That would be a remarkable rise for China, which wasn’t even in the top ten cinema markets two years ago. A burst of new cinemas, plus an appetite for Hollywood blockbusters, are propelling growth.
According to the China Film Producers Association, Chinese box office receipts will reach up to Rmb40bn ($6bn) in 2015, putting the country second only to the US.
This year, China’s receipts are predicted to reach Rmb10bn ($1.5bn), well behind the forecast US figure of $10bn. But the two countries are seeing very different growth rates: Chinese receipts jumped by 86 per cent year-on-year in the first half, while the US’s increased by a mere 11 per cent.
China’s staggering growth comes mainly because its cinema audiences have been severely underserved. The country is building new movie theatres at a speed unmatched by any other market. The number of screens is forecast to almost triple from currently 4,500 to 12,000 at the end of 2015.
Foreign movies are frequently the best-grossing productions. Earlier this year, Avatar smashed China’s all-time box office record (previously held by Titanic), clocking up Rmb1.3bn ($195m) in ticket sales."
Source:  China Film Producers Association, reported by the Financial Times, 14th October 2010

Apple sold 14.1m iPhones in the 3rd Quarter 2010

"Apple sold 3.89 million Macs during the quarter, a 27 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 14.1 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 91 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.05 million iPods during the quarter, representing an 11 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.19 million iPads during the quarter."
Source:  Press release from Apple to announce their 4th Quarter results(ending 25th Sept 2010), 18th October 2010

Just under one third of US digital music downloads come from just 50 songs

"On 6/27/10, the 2010 YTD Digital Tracks Current chart showed the Top 50 songs totaled 69,608,330.
On 6/27/10, the National Sales Summary (Track) chart showed that YTD, there were 231,863,000 current tracks sold YTD."
Source:  Data from Nielsen Soundscan, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 7th October 2010

Anti-cholesterol drug Liptor generated more revenue than the entire US recording industry in 2009

"2009 US sales of recorded music: $4.6 billion
(source: IFPI's Recording Industry In Numbers.)
2009 sales of Liptor: $5.7 billion
(source: Pfizer financial filings)"
[Note - I'm assuming that the Liptor sales are for the US only]

Source:  DigitalMediaNews, 8th October 2010

UK online ad spend rose by 10% Y-o-Y in the first half of 2010

"Online advertising expenditure continues to rise in the UK, with consumer goods brands and retailers among the key drivers of this trend.
Estimates from industry body the IAB, compiled in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Warc, show internet ad revenues increased 10%, to £1.97bn ($3.1bn; €2.3bn), during the first half of 2010.
This took the medium to a record 24.3% market share, and also meant the net out-performed the advertising sector as a whole, which registered a 6.3% uptick to £8.1bn.
Paid search maintained a dominant position, receiving 59.9% of web advertising sales, improving 8.9% compared with H1 2009.
Display sales, on £381m, jumped 6.4%, delivering around 19% of online adspend, largely flat year-on-year.
Standard formats such as banners contributed £272m of this figure, up from £238m on an annual basis, and pre- and post-roll video returns also rose 82%, reaching £20.7m.
Meanwhile, social networking platforms like Facebook and MySpace claimed 13% of internet display advertising takings."
Source:  Data from IAB & PwC, reported by Warc, 6th October 2010

YouTube is monetising 2 billion video views per week

"Google has reported revenues of US$7.2bn for the third quarter, up 23pc on last year and 7pc on Q2. The company, which has US$33bn in cash on hand, made a profit of US$2bn for the third quarter.
For the first time Google gave a glimpse of just how financially divisions like display and YouTube were actually doing.
Senior vice-president of product management Jonathan Rosenberg said Google’s annualised run-rate for display ad revenues is approaching US$2.5bn. YouTube is monetising 2 billion views per week, up 50pc on last year."
Source:  Official figures revealed by Google, reported by Silicon Republic, 18th October 2010

Chinese social network Kaixin001 has 90m registered users

"Cheng Binghao, CEO of Chinese social networking site Kaixin001, recently revealed that as of September, Kaixin001 had over 90 mln registered users"
Source:  Beijing Times, via Marbridge Daily, 18th October 2010 

US online advertising revenues rose by 11.3% Y-o-Y in the first 6 months of 2010

"US online advertising revenue rose 11.3 percent during the first six months of the year to 12.1 billion dollars to set a half-year record, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) said Tuesday.
The IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report said online ad revenue in the second quarter of the year was up 13.9 percent over the same period last year to 6.2 billion dollars, also setting a quarterly record.
Display-related advertising, which includes banner ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorships, rose nearly 16 percent during the first six months of the year to 4.4 billion dollars, the IAB said.
Internet search advertising rose 11.6 percent to 5.7 billion dollars in the first six months of 2010 and remains the largest percentage of overall interactive spending at 47 percent, the IAB said."
Source: Figures from the IAB & PwC, reported by AFP, 13th October 2010

Social gaming apps on Apple devices reach a global audience of 19 million daily

Click to enlarge

"Social games on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices are competing for television viewers.  In fact, these apps, tracked on the Flurry network alone, comprise of a daily audience of more than 19 million who spend over 22 minutes per day using these apps.  Treated as a consumer audience, its size and reach rank somewhere between NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, and only 4 million viewers shy from beating the number one prime-time show on television, FOX’s American Idol.
However, Flurry is only seeing part of the picture.  With Flurry integrated into more than 50,000 apps, out of Apple’s stated total of 250,000 apps, Flurry has about 20% penetration.  Additionally, since this analysis focuses on only two categories of applications, social games and social networking apps, it’s clear that iOS devices are already ahead of prime time television’s hottest shows."

[Note - I am assuming that the Flurry app numbers are global]

Source:  Blog post by Flurry Analytics, 11th October 2010

Google's revenues rose 23% Y-o-Y in Q3 2010

"Revenues – Google reported revenues of $7.29 billion in the third quarter of 2010, representing a 23% increase over third quarter 2009 revenues of $5.94 billion. Google reports its revenues, consistent with GAAP, on a gross basis without deducting TAC.
Google Sites Revenues - Google-owned sites generated revenues of $4.83 billion, or 67% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase over third quarter 2009 revenues of $3.96 billion.
Google Network Revenues - Google’s partner sites generated revenues, through AdSense programs, of $2.20 billion, or 30% of total revenues, in the third quarter of 2010. This represents a 22% increase from third quarter 2009 network revenues of $1.80 billion.
International Revenues - Revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.77 billion, representing 52% of total revenues in the third quarter of 2010, compared to 52% in the second quarter of 2010 and 53% in the third quarter of 2009. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the second quarter of 2010 through the third quarter of 2010, our revenues in the third quarter of 2010 would have been $9 million lower. Excluding gains related to our foreign exchange risk management program, had foreign exchange rates remained constant from the third quarter of 2009 through the third quarter of 2010, our revenues in the third quarter of 2010 would have been $169 million higher."
Source:  Press release from Google, 14th October 2010

Advertising around stories recommended in social media is more effective

"The overall uplift for brands who advertise around stories recommended in social media is significant. The global online survey showed that people who received news content from a friend or associate via social media, were 19% more likely to recommend the brand that advertised around that story to others and 27% more likely to favour that brand themselves.
More specifically, POWNAR examined case studies including one where a major European tourism board reported notably stronger campaign cut-through with aided ad re-call up 50% and brand favourability up 32% after advertising around news that was shared in social media."
Source:  POWNAR research from CNN, October 2010

Next Generation Media Quarterly - October 2010

Regular readers will recognise some of the stats in my new presentation on Slideshare.

Next Generation Media Quarterly October 2010

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Enjoy!

Sales of British TV shows and formats rose to $1.34bn in 2009

"The appetite for British television shows overseas defied the recession last year with export sales up 9% year on year to smash the £1bn mark. Sales of hit UK series, such as Strictly Come Dancing, Wife Swap, Come Dine With Me, Spooks and MasterChef, to foreign broadcasters earned a record £1.34bn for the UK economy in 2009.
The annual UK TV Exports Survey, collated independently by TRP for the independent producers' trade body Pact, reveals that the biggest growth area for British programmes and formats was Australia and New Zealand for the second year – up 32% year on year to £170m.
Localised versions of shows such as Top Gear and MasterChef have proved popular down under; and MasterChef, made by Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine, set a record last year for Australia's most watched non-sport show ever.
Overall sales of formats, when a foreign TV company buys rights to a series such as Come Dine With Me and then makes the show itself, rose 25% to £119m. Meanwhile, the trend towards producing UK formats abroad – a foreign TV company buys the rights for a show but asks a UK-owned company to make a localised version – gathered pace last year with a 124% rise in revenue to £41m.
The UK television industry's main customer is still the US, where British formats including American Idol (from Pop Idol) and Dancing with the Stars – the US version of Strictly Come Dancing – continue to pull in massive audiences. Transatlantic sales accounted for 36% of total export revenue, with a 3% growth in revenue to £485m. The overall North American market is worth £546m with "significant revenue contributions" from sales of videos and DVDs, formats and licensing. America's appetite for the best of British appears to be insatiable: a US version of MasterChef, presented by Gordon Ramsay, proved successful and Simon Cowell's The X Factor is set to arrive next year."
Source:  Data from PACT, reported by The Guardian, 4th October 2010

More than 50m digital albums have been sold in the UK

"It has taken just under four and half years for digital album sales to surpass the 50 million figure, whereas it took five years, for the sales of albums on CD to reach the same level.
The new figures released by the recording industry body, the BPI and the Official Charts Company, and shown first to The Telegraph, also show that the 500 millionth single download was purchased in the UK last week.
In 2006, downloaded albums accounted for less than 2% of the UK music industry’s total revenue. For 2010 year-to-date, digital sales constitute 19.6% of all albums sold with download sales expected to top 20 million by the end of the year. Five albums have sold over 100,000 digital copies to date this year, with Mumford & Sons’ Sigh No More being the top seller, having sold 131,737 copies."

Source:  Data from the BPI and the Official Charts Company, reported by the Daily Telegraph, 1st October 2010

House was the most watched TV show globally in 2008

"Eurodata TV Worldwide announced that Fox's medical drama House was the most-watched show in the whole wide world last year, with more than 81.8 million viewers in 66 countries."
Source:  Eurodata TV Worldwide, reported by Entertainment Weekly, 29th June 2009

Research on American Youth and radio

The Edison Research American Youth Study 2010 - Part One: Radio's Future

View more presentations from webby2001.

Source:  Edison Research, 29th September 2010

A Facebook user who 'likes' content is likely to have twice as many friends on the site than one who does not

"On average, a Facebook user who “likes” your content has more than double the number of friends than does a typical Facebook user. This could mean the user is more “social” or more influential, but on the other hand, it could mean the user is an attention-seeking narcissist. While it’s fatuous to read too much into that statistic, the number does show that the average “liker” is more active from a social-web standpoint.
An even more interesting stat about the likers is that they click on five times more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user. If clickthroughs are what you’re looking for from your social media strategy, this is good news."

Source:  Data from the Facebook’s Developer Network Insights team, reported by Mashable, 29th September 2010

60% of eBook reader owners cite online connectivity as their favourite feature of the device

"60% of e-reader owners cite it as their favorite feature
49% of smartphone owners indicate high-speed internet as a motivating purchase factor
38% of all Blu-ray owners indicate internet connectivity is important or very important feature"
Source:  The Connected Experience: Building a Bridge Between Devices & Content, NPD, September 2010

Justin Beiber earns a minimum of $300,000 per show

"Justin Bieber earns a minimum of $300,000 per concert, placing him near the top of the summertime tour earnings list, contract records show.
The 16-year-old performer earns more per gig than established acts like Sheryl Crow ($146,500), Weezer ($150,000), and Bret Michaels ($64,000). Bieber, though, does not command as much as Rascal Flatts ($702,500), Kiss ($500,000), or Keith Urban ($487,500).
A review of dozens of concert contracts shows that Bieber outearns all of his young contemporaries, banking twice as much as Drake ($155,000), three times that of Disney star Selena Gomez ($100,000), and four times as much as “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks ($75,000).
Source:  The Smoking Gun, 28th September 2010