More than a quarter of US homes now have no landline and rely instead on mobile

"More than a quarter of U.S. homes have no landlines, relying instead on a wireless connection - a number that has doubled in the space of three years, according to a new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. Every state saw a rise in the percentage of wireless-only homes, with the highest being Arkansas at 35.2% and the lowest increase in Rhode Island and New Jersey at 12.8%."
Source:  Research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, reported by MarketingVox, 25th April 2011

TV viewing is rising in Europe

"Consumers in some of Europe's biggest markets are spending more time watching television, a new study has shown.
Research firm Eurodata suggested people in the UK dedicated 3 hours 57 minutes to TV every day during the opening eight months of 2010, a 15 minute increase on an annual basis.
The Netherlands generated a seven minute uptick from exactly three hours registered between January and August 2009.
Similarly, the average member of the Spanish audience commits 3 hours 49 minutes to this medium, a six minute improvement."

Source: Data from Eurodata, reported by Warc, 30th September 2010

It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people...

Time spent to reach 50 million users
"Radio: 38 years
TV: 13 years
Internet: 4 years
iPod: 3 years
Facebook: 2 years
In 1984 there were only one thousand devices in the world capable of accessing the Internet. Eight years later this had reached one million. Last year it reached one billion, and there will be little surprise if this figure doubles within the next few years."

Source:  Original source is unknown, this is from The Southern Cross, 9th March 2009

Update - it seems that the first stats may come from the United Nations Cyberschoolbus, published (I think) in 2000.  Thanks to Joseph Guenes (@brandingself) for the tip!

Netflix has 23.6m subscribers

"Netflix has issued its Q1 letter to investors, revealing a subscriber count that has grown by 3.3 million to 23.6 million subscribers."
Source:  Netflix statement, reported by Engadget, 25th April 2011
Full statement here
Note - it's 'domestic' so US only

Every month Google consumes enough energy to wash 5 million loads of laundry

"To mark Earth Day 2011, WordStream Inc., a provider of search marketing software, has compiled research revealing the environmental effects, good and bad, of our ever-growing Internet dependence, including data on the energy usage and CO2 emissions of Google searches and email spam.
Research findings include:
- In 2005, the 10.3 million data centers in the U.S. used 61 billion kWh of energy -- enough to power the entire U.K. for two years.
- One Google search produces the same amount of CO2 as driving a car three inches.
- Every month, Google consumes enough energy to wash 5 million loads of laundry.
- The 62 trillion spam messages sent each year produce the equivalent CO2 emissions of 1.6 million cars driving around the planet."

Source:  Data compiled by the internet marketing company WordStream, published as a press release, 21st April 2011

Mobile accounts for 3/4 of Chinese phone subscriptions

"China's total telephone subscribers (including fixed-line, mobile, and PHS) reached 1.18 bln, 75.2% of whom were mobile subscribers."
Source:  Shanghai Securities News, reported by Marbridge Daily, 23rd April 2011

There are 61.9m 3G subscribers in China

"Liu Lihua, China's deputy Minister of Industry and Information Technology, recently revealed that as of the end of March 2011, China had 61.9 mln 3G mobile subscribers, including 26.99 mln TD-SCDMA subscribers."
Source:  Shanghai Securities News, reported by Marbridge Daily, 23rd April 2011

80% of British students own a laptop; 40% spend 3-4 hours a day online

"The study (of over 1,000 students) indicates that despite difficult financial times students are willing to embrace paid for content with over a third having paid for some form of online content, such as apps and online gaming credits. The research shows that students are fully equipped with the latest technology with significantly more saying they own laptops (80%) than TVs (57%), 50% are spending a proportion of their time accessing the internet via their smartphones. When asked this rose to three quarters who claimed that they will be accessing the internet via a smartphone handset in the next 2 years.
The study highlights that nearly 40% of students questioned are spending between 3-4 hours per day online; the majority being on social network sites. The research showed that almost a third are following brands on social sites with the likes of River Island, New look and Adidas being in the top ten mentioned - in some cases specifically for discounts (35.2%) and exclusive content (29.5%) with over two thirds contributing to existing content on friends’ walls, pages and statuses."

Source:  Research conducted by the IAB (UK) and Student Room, reported on the IAB website, 13th April 2011

The demographics of British 'Mummy Bloggers'

"At the end of 2010, we surveyed 317 BMB members and developed a clearer picture of this fast-growing, dynamic blogging community which not only puts paid to some of the stereotypes but reveals why mum blogging is one of the most defined and inflential blogging tribes in the UK.
The survey reveals:
- Contrary to the image of all mum bloggers as not engaged in the world of work, 84% of respondents had a career before they started blogging and 68% still have a job or run their own business.
- Social networking is a cornerstone of their blogging life. They mostly define blogging as a hobby (82%) but it entails spending more than 7 hours a week on social media. (96% use Facebook and 81% use Twitter.) Compare that with the 2 to 3 hours they spend on traditional media each week, including newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.
- BMB bloggers mostly identify as being middle class (67%) and the majority are aged 30-39 years (55%) or 40-49 (30%).
- Far from being an “old trend”, mum blogging continues to gain steam - something we see in the number of new members joining BMB every week. Thirteen percent have been blogging for fewer than three months, 26% have been blogging for up to a year, and 34% have been blogging for 1 to 2 years. More than a quarter, or 27%, have been blogging for three years or more.
What we blog about
Unsurprisingly, parenting and children rank highest on topics to blog about. But lifestyle (71%), food (46%)  and travel (32%) are hot topics as well.
Mum bloggers are also looking to the future by interacting with brands - one of the ways that blogging is becoming sustainable.
More than half of respondents do reviews and 31% more want to. Most bloggers are open to working with brands, if the situation is right: 55% are interested in advertiser and sponsor relationships and 35% would consider it.

Source:  Research conducted by, and published in The Britmums Blog, 11th April 2011

American artists receive less than $8 for 250,000 YouTube plays

""For every 250,000 streams on YouTube, that is the equivalent of one credit of ASCAP performing rights value," Renzer relayed. "One credit is less than $8, it's about $7.60."  The forum was held by the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) in Los Angeles earlier this year.    
Renzer aptly described the ratio as "depressing," though he also noted that YouTube has secured proper licenses with performance rights organizations.  "You do that math and it's pretty depressing, but that's the world we live in today, and it's causing a lot of consternation and a lot of discussion amongst the industry," Renzer relayed."

Source:  David Renzer, chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group Publishing, reported by Digital Music News, 22nd April 2011
Note - also make sure to read the discussion under the article on Digital Music News

Next Generation Media Quarterly - April 2011

Next Generation Media Quarterly April 2011

View more presentations from Dan Calladine

Here's another instalment of my quarterly presentations, looking at key stats and examples from the last 3 months.

Lots on mobile and social media this time!

Many of the stats will be familiar with regular readers!

Apple sold 19m iPhones and 5m iPads in the quarter to 26th March 2011

"Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2011 second quarter ended March 26, 2011. The Company posted record second quarter revenue of $24.67 billion and record second quarter net profit of $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.4 percent compared to 41.7 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter’s revenue.
Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the quarter, a 28 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 113 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 9.02 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 17 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter. The Company also sold 4.69 million iPads during the quarter."

Source:  Press release from Apple, 20th April 2011

Mobile data use is soaring in the UK

"Whatever it was we all did before the invention of smartphones has clearly been forgotten after it was revealed data usage on the devices has soared by more than 75 per cent in the first quarter of 2011.
We're consuming more and more data through our iPhone, HTC (pictured) and BlackBerry smarthphones
It means owners of iPhone or Galaxy handsets, for example, have used the same amount of data it takes to download 7million mp3 tracks every seven days.
Of all the cities in Metro’s circulation, usage grew the most in Birmingham, in which 102 per cent more data is being consumed every week.
London had an 87 per cent rise – the equivalent of viewing 63million websites every seven days – while people in Edinburgh are now using 72 per cent more data, according to research by Three.
The network says mobile broadband use on computers and tablets, such as the iPad, is also on the rise.
Networks will soon be able to provide internet speeds 16 times faster than current technologies after Ofcom recently unveiled plans for 4G coverage.
Marc Allera, of Three, said: ‘This year, we expect more than 90 per cent of  customers to choose a smartphone when they get a new contract or upgrade.’"
Source:  Data from 3, reported by Metro, 20th April 2011
Note - the report is unclear, but from this related report, the growth seems to be quarter-on-quarter, not year-on-year.  That is, the 75% growth from Q4 2010 to Q1 2011.

Twently year old Tom Ridgewell - Tomska - earns over £3,500 a month on YouTube

"When it comes to money we all use it, most of us earn it and nearly everyone wants more of it.
But unless your surname is Zuckerberg or Page when it comes to the internet, making money for a lot of people starts and ends with sites like eBay.
Not for 20-year-old student Tom Ridgewell, who's one of a new generation of YouTube stars making thousands of pounds through the site every month.
"I like to think I work in comedy," he says.
"I just try to make funny videos really - ones that make me laugh."
He's written, produced and directed dozens of short films, sketches and cartoons.
But get onto his channel and it's the numbers that really stand out: 55 million views and 220,000 subscribers - numbers he's been able to translate into money.
"They put adverts around your videos and you get a cut of that," Tom explains.
He wouldn't give away specific numbers but told Newsbeat he earns between £3,500 and £7,000 each month."
Source:  BBC Newsbeat, 20th April 2011

Greenpeace received over 80,000 comments to a Facebook post in 24 hours

Click to enlarge

Source:  Greenpeace, 13th April 2011

There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices

"There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products"

Source:  Facebook official statistics, retrieved 19th April 2011

Earlier figures here - 200m mobile users.  Other official data (e.g. number of users) has not been significantly updated.

Nintendo sold 440,000 3DS consoles in the US in the first week of sale

"Nintendo Co., the world’s biggest maker of video-game consoles, said it sold almost 440,000 units of the 3DS handheld game player during its first week of U.S. sales in late March.
Combined with three older models, Nintendo sold 860,000 DS units in March, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said, citing figures from industry tracker NPD Group Inc. A year ago, Nintendo sold 701,000 DS handhelds.
“We had a great start to the Nintendo 3DS, and portables overall had their best March in history,” Fils-Aime said yesterday in a phone interview.
Nintendo, unlike some Japanese manufacturers, has not faced supply constraints on its products following last month’s earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan, Fils-Aime said. Shipments of the $250 3DS, which plays 3-D images without the need for special glasses, haven’t been affected, and the company still plans to deliver a new Web browser and Netflix streaming before the end of the summer, he said."

Source:  Bloomberg, 15th April 2011

Ebooks are the best selling category of books in America

"Ebooks have become the single bestselling category in American publishing for the first time, according to new data released yesterday.
The latest report from the Association of American Publishers, compiling sales data from US publishing houses, shows that total ebook sales in February were $90.3m (£55.2m). This makes digital books the largest single format in the US for the first time ever, the AAP said, overtaking paperbacks at $81.2m. In January, ebooks were the second-largest category, behind paperbacks.
America's ebooks enjoyed a 202.3% growth in sales in February compared with the same month the previous year, the book trade association revealed. Print books fared much worse by contrast, with the combined category of adult hardback and paperback books falling 34.4% to $156.8m in February. The children and young adult category of print books fell 16.1% to $58.5m.
The AAP attributed the growth in February to "a high level of strong post-holiday ebook buying" from readers given ereader devices for Christmas, with the greater selection of devices and the broader range of ebooks now available also playing a part in the increase."

Source:  The Guardian, 15th April 2011

200m files are saved on Dropbox every day

"Dropbox will announce a number of milestones on Monday morning, we’ve learned. The file backup and sharing service was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.
It was in one of the early Y Combinator classes, now has 25 million users and 200 million files are “saved” daily, and more than 1 million every five minutes.
That’s impressive growth from the 4 million users the company had a year ago (they had two million in late 2009). Dropbox enables people to sync files and media across platforms and devices, in order to have them available from any location. The service also allows people to easily and quickly share files with others. Dropbox provides users with 2 GB of space for free, and they can pay for more."

Source:  TechCrunch, 17th April 2011

3 billion Androd apps have been installed

"On Google’s earnings call today, Jeff Huber, Senior VP Commerce and Local, revealed that there have been over 3 billion Android apps installed. And downloads of Android apps are up 50 percent from Q4 2010.
Huber also mentioned that 350,000 Android devices are being activated per day, a data point which was revealed this past week. In terms of breaking out share by device and market, Huber said the company doesn’t reveal these numbers. But he did say that with device partners, there is strength in U.S., Japan, Korea, and Europe specifically. He added that international is growing as a whole in terms of Android usage.
To put the 3 billion stat in perspective, Apple just passed 10 billion app downloads in January. But thanks to the fast growth of the sale of Android phones, Google’s app downloads are growing fast. The first billion installs took 20 months, the second billion installs took another 5 months, and the third billion took only 2 months."
Source:  TechCrunch, 14th April 2011

Google accounts for over 90% UK searches

Click to enlarge

Source:  Press release from Experian Hitwise, 12th April 2011

The average Spotify listener listens to 50 new tracks a month

"The changes we’re having to make will mainly affect heavier Spotify Free and Open users, as most of you use Spotify to discover music – on average over 50 new tracks per month, even after a year. Plus, the average user won’t reach the limit on plays for 7 out of 10 tracks, after a year of using Spotify. For those of you using Spotify to find new tracks to enjoy and share with friends, these changes shouldn’t get in the way of you doing that. Rest assured that we’ll continue to bring you the biggest and most diverse music catalogue available."
Source:  Blog post from Spotify (announcing restrictions to the free service), 14th April 2011
Note - By 'new' what they mean is tracks that user had not listened to before

Online ad spend hit $26bn in the US in 2010

Click to enlarge

"The IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for the full year 2010 and Q4 2010 both showed record results in the United States. Released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US, the latest report puts all 2010 Internet advertising revenues at a record $26 billion, up 15% from 2009. Fourth quarter revenue also hit new highs at $7.45 billion, up 19% from Q4 2009 and 15% from Q3 2010.
Highlights of the report include:
- There were record numbers for the yearly advertising revenue as well as record quarterly highs in the Q4 2010.
- The most popular ad format in 2010 was search which represented 46% of revenue and saw 12% growth from last year.
- Sponsorships saw the most growth with an 88% increase over last year and 142% increase in the fourth quarter alone.
- Display-related advertising – which includes Digital Video Commercials, Ad banners/display ads, sponsorships and rich media – continued to grow this year, totaling nearly $10 billion with an increase of 24% over 2009.
- The results exhibit revenue growth for the past five consecutive quarters.
- The Annual Report marks the debut of estimated US mobile ad revenue for 2010: between $550 and $650 million.
“As the latest IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report amply demonstrates, brand advertisers and marketers have adopted the power of digital media as a central element of their campaigns,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. “Consumers have shifted more of their time to digital media – watching television shows and movies online – and advertisers now accept this multifaceted medium as a key component for reaching their targets.”
“With a strong rebound from 2009, the $26 billion spent on Internet advertising points to a continued focus on digital media ad spend, with dollars catching up to the eyeballs. More time spent online, especially with increases in digital video and social media, has certainly helped to fuel the continued growth,” said David Silverman, PwC Assurance partner.
“We now have had five consecutive quarters of growth since the great recession impacted interactive advertising in 2009,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Industry Services, IAB. “The record-breaking revenue in Q4 2010 and the total year indicate that interactive advertising has weathered the storm and then some."

Source:  Data compiled by the IAB & PwC, reported in a press release from the IAB, 13th April 2011

Hilton Worldwide received over 100,000 room bookings via it's mobile app in 2010

"Hilton Worldwide received over 100,000 room bookings via its mobile applications in 2010, demonstrating the revenue-generating potential of a rounded social media strategy for hotels, the brand has said.
Speaking at the latest Cornell Hospitality Research Summit (CHRS) in the United States, Hilton’s senior VP of corporate strategy Kevin Jacobs said the hotel group had “gone all in” with its social media strategy, which included a focus on mobile applications.
“Since over 80 per cent of Hilton’s guests travel with a mobile device and 40 per cent use it to search travel, mobile apps make sense,” he said.
Hilton’s mobile apps have seen more than 340,000 downloads, he added, and guests used them to book well over 100,000 room-nights in 2010, with revenue up 200 per cent."
Source:  Big Hospitality, 12th April 2011

Three times as many people stream music videos as download music

"Here's some surprising good news for video aggregator YouTube: More Internet users watch music videos for free on YouTube than download music either through official sources like iTunes or even illegally. That discovery comes from Nielsen, who polled more than 25,000 users about their online music habits towards the end of last year.
Nielsen's report on the subject, "The Hyper-Fragmented World of Music," says that three times as many people stream music videos as download music, adding that audio-only streaming is also more popular than legal digital downloads ("Unfortunately," the report continues, "subscription models have yet to gain popularity with users"). Legal digital downloads are nonetheless globally popular, with the format experiencing double digit growth in Europe."

Source:  Research from Nielsen, reported by Techland, 12th April 2011

See the full Nielsen Study here

Rebecca Black's Friday video hit 100m views after 63 days

Other stats:
2,104,000 Comments
260,000 Likes
2,07,000 Dislikes
Source:  YouTube, retrieved 13th April 2011

StumbleUpon gets one billion 'stumbles' a month

"In January, we reported that StumbleUpon had broken a new record with 27.5 million stumbles in one day. At the beginning of this month, we interviewed Marc Leibowitz, StumbleUpon’s VP of Marketing and Business Development who told us that since 2009, StumbleUpon has grown from 6 million to 15 million users. Recommendations have tripled, now surpassing 800 million every month. Each month, over 3-4 million users are active on StumbleUpon, with the primary base being in the US.
Today, they’ve just crossed a new threshold: 1 billion stumbles per month.  StumbleUpon is now driving billions of visitors to websites that have been “Stumbled.”"

Source:  TheNextWeb, 6th April 2011

Bing has over 30% of searches in the US

"Experian® Hitwise®, a part of Experian Marketing Services, announced today that Google accounted for 64.42 percent of all U.S. searches conducted in the four weeks ending April 2, 2011. Bing-powered search comprised 30.01 percent of searches for the month, with Yahoo! Search and Bing receiving 15.69 percent and 14.32 percent, respectively. The remaining 69 search engines1 in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report accounted for 5.58 percent of U.S. searches."

Source:  Press Release from Experian Hitwise, 11th April 2011

TripAdvisor has 45m reviews & opinions, and over 6m photos

"Milestones in the history of TripAdvisor:
- November 2000: http://www.tripadvisor.com goes live
- March 2002: The site is profitable
- April 2004: Sold to IAC
- August 2005: Part of Expedia, Inc.
- January 2005: The first hurdle of a million reviews and opinions is achieved.
- April 2008: 15 million reviews and opinions
- July 2009: 25 million reviews and opinions
- May 2010: 35 million reviews and opinions
- August 2010: TripAdvisor becomes the first travel site to have more than 40 million monthly users* to become the world's largest travel site.
- October 2010: 40 million reviews and opinions
- 2010: TripAdvisor launches 10 new sites around the world
- March 2011: 45 million reviews and opinions covering:
1) 85,000+ destinations
2) 474,000+ hotels
3) 100,000+ vacation rentals
4) 135,000+ attractions
5) 675,000+ restaurants
6) With 6,000,000+ candid traveller photos"
Source:  Press release from TripAdvisor, 12th April 2011
Note:  I'm not sure what constitutes an 'opinion' but I suspect it includes all comments on the forum

Google activates 350,000 Android devices each day

"I think general trends include the proliferation of mobile devices. We have seen Google is now activating 350,000 Android devices daily. That's up from 300,000 several months ago and roughly 60,000 a year ago, so a significant acceleration in mobile. We are seeing Google also serve over two billion ad impressions a day through AdMob, which serves display advertising into applications on mobile devices. We are seeing Google post over $1 billion in revenue from mobile alone, over $2.5 billion in display, so we think display advertising is also at a big inflection point as companies like Procter And Gamble and other consumer products companies are opening up their budgets and spending more online. Twelve years ago that money may have gone to Yahoo! or AOL. I think it's now being focused on social media platforms too, on sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as Google, which offers some performance-based display advertising products."

Source:  Brian J. Pitz is an Executive Director and a Senior Research Analyst in equity research at UBS Investment Bank, interviewed on Yahoo Finance, 11th April 2011

U2's 360 Tour is the highest grossing tour in history

"It takes 120 lorries to transport, has a 50-metre tall sound system and cost more than any tour in the history of music. But it appears that U2's 360° extravaganza was worth the investment as it has become the highest grossing tour ever, beating the record set by the Rolling Stones.
The Irish band's first tour in three years, which kicked off in June 2009 at Barcelona's Camp Nou stadium, made it past the $558m (£341m) world record after their concert in São Paulo, Brazil, with 20 more gigs to go. The Stones pulled in $558m (£341m) for their Bigger Bang tour between 2005 and 2007.
By the time the U2 tour ends this July, the band will have played to more than 3 million fans in more than three dozen cities around the world and will have made an estimated $700m.
U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, said he and the band were proud of the tour. "That dollar figure for the gross looks enormous," he said. "Of course I can't tell you what the net is, but I can tell you that the band spend enormous sums on production for their audience. Fans all over the world agree that a ticket to U2 360° is good value for money."
Estimated to have cost more than $100m, 360° was already set to be the band's most expensive tour, with the transportation of the stage alone estimated to cost $750,000 a day whether or not the band played. It was projected to gross $750m by the end of 2010, eclipsing takings from the 2005-06 Vertigo tour, which earned U2 $389m."
Source:  The Guardian, 11th April 2011

Motherhood drives smartphone ownership

"More than half (53%) of the women surveyed said they purchased a smartphone as a direct result of becoming a mom. During this transition to motherhood, the most important features of her phone changed from her address book and text messaging to her camera, up 78% to #1, and video camera, which increased by 167% to #2. Apps, which weren’t even on her top ten list of important mobile features before she became a mom, increased 67% to #3 on the list. More than half (52%) of the moms surveyed have ten or more apps downloaded, with nearly 25% of the apps being for her kids."
Source:  Press release from Babycenter, 29th March 2011

The mobile version of ESPNCricInfo accounted for 45% of all of the site's page views on the day of the Cricket World Cup Final

"ESPN says the mobile version of its ESPNcricinfo site accounted for 45 percent (45 million) of all the brand’s page views during the April 2 final, in which India beat Pakistan. That’s the highest share of any of the digital media through which ESPN covered the sport, and doesn’t even include the app versions of ESPNcricinfo.
It’s significant that mobile use outweighed desktop use. ESPN claims ESPNcricinfo’s mobile site took 63.6 percent of the global mobile audience in its industry segment - far outweighing the 36.1 percent share ESPNcricinfo claims it took in the desktop web market.
That effect came from Indians, who supplied the largest slice of mobile traffic to ESPNcricinfo (377.3 million page views through the tournament). There are around 700 million mobile phones in use in India - nearly the entire population of 1.15 billion. Many of the handsets are unsophisticated, but broadcasters nevertheless supply subscription audio content. In neighbouring Pakistan, BBC Urdu offered five, two-minute World Cup audio reports every hour for on-demand listening by dial-up during the competition."
Source:  ContentSutra, 11th April 2011

Shazam lost over £600,000 on revenues of nearly £11m in the year to June 2010

"Mobile discovery service Shazam has published its financial results for the year ended 30 June 2010.
The company reported revenues of £10.6 million, and a loss after tax of £635,366 in the documents, filed with Companies House in the UK.
That compares to revenues of £7.3 million in the previous financial year (ended 30 June 2009), when Shazam reported a loss after tax of £89,943.
In its latest financial year, Shazam’s administration expenses were £10.5 million, having grown from £6.6 million in the previous year. Of the £10.5 million, £4 million went on wages and salaries."

Source:  Music Ally, 7th April 2011

10m UK consumers made mobile transactions in 2010

"A total of 10 million UK consumers made a mobile transaction in 2010 (equal to 23% of UK online consumers), but 83 percent of these experienced problems, according to a survey by Harris Interactive for online customer experience management (CEM) software provider Tealeaf.
The research shows that as smartphone adoption groups, UK consumers expect a faultless experience across all online channels, with 75 percent of online adults agreeing there is no reason why a mobile transaction cannot be completed on the first try.
Two thirds (66%) of online adults said they would be less likely to buy from the same brand via other purchase channels if they experienced problems conducting a mobile transaction.
Shopping is the most popular m-commerce activity (63%), followed by financial transactions (37%), travel bookings (34%) and insurance payments/purchases (23%)."
Source:  The Wireless Federation, April 2011
Note - presumably this includes app store purchases, purchases by SMS and so on, in addition to more high-profile spending with Debenhams, Ebay, Dominos etc.

80% of British mobile internet users under 25 use their mobiles to communicate with friends while watching TV

"How young people watch television is rapidly changing according to a new study of UK mobile internet users below the age of 25.
80% of those surveyed use a mobile device to communicate with friends while watching TV with 72% using Twitter, Facebook or mobile applications to actively comment on shows as they are watching them.
These are the findings of a study conducted by Digital Clarity (www.digital-clarity.com), a specialist digital marketing agency which polled over 1300 people under 25 from a cross section of the UK.
The trend known as ‘Social TV’ is popular with young people as it allows them to instantly comment on their favourite shows to friends in different locations via the web or mobile phone.
In the US, a joint Nielsen and Yahoo study late last year found that the trend is already well established with over 86% of mobile internet users choosing to communicate with each other in real-time during broadcasts. Now ‘second screening’ as it is referred to in the States has become common place in the UK too.
Rather than social networks and television competing for attention it seems that young people are happy to embrace both and use one to enhance their enjoyment of the other.
The UK study found that 34% described the trend as ‘fun’, 32% said it made television ‘more interesting’ with 42% mentioning the ‘community’ aspect of ‘Social TV’."
Source:  Research by Digital Clarity, revealed in a press release, 8th March 2011

Actual & predicted smartphone operating system sales & shares 2010-2014

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"Worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 57.7 percent increase from 2010, according to Gartner Inc. By the end of 2011, Android will move to become the most popular operating system (OS) worldwide and will build on its strength to account for 49 percent of the smartphone market by 2012 (see Table 1).
Sales of open OS* devices will account for 26 percent of all mobile handset device sales in 2011, and are expected to surpass the 1 billion mark by 2015, when they will account for 47 percent of the total mobile device market."

Source:  Gartner press release, 7th April 2011

Note - I normally steer well clear of predictions, but I've included this one because it's a good source and also it's a nice clear table

Yelp has 17m reviews and 50m monthly visitors

"Today the company has surpassed 50 million monthly unique users (as reported by their internal Google Analytics), up from 46 million the month before. And they have a total of 17 million reviews for venues around the world. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman says that the service is seeing a faster rate of growth for both contributions (reviews) and users than it has historically— in Q1, users wrote 2 million reviews, while most quarters average 1 million. In other words, even if some of these other services are gaining traction, it isn’t hurting Yelp."

Source:  Techcrunch, 4th April 2011

China's top 15 social networks

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Source:  TechRice, 8th March 2011
Note - lots more information on the TechRice site.
Caution - as it says on the chart, there's a bit of guesswork behind some of the numbers.  It's a good list of sites though.

2/3 of Spotify's free users are under 29

"Is Spotify’s free service drawing people away from piracy? Will Page from PRS for Music outlined a stat that starts to answer that question, during a speech to the IPsoc law society late last week. “Two thirds of Spotify Free users are under the age of 29,” he says. “Strong evidence that a significant part of ‘Generation Napster’ now prefer legal free.” Spotify has confirmed the figure with Music Ally."
Source:  MusicAlly, 5th April 2011

A list of social networks that get at least 1m visitors a day

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Source:  Google Trends for Websites data, reported by Pingdom, 25th March 2011
Note - Google is pretty secretive about how they collate their Trends for Websites data (e.g. do they use Doubleclick stats?  Google Analytics stats?) so perhaps treat the figures with a bit of caution.  It's a handy list of social networks though!

Factors that influence engagement with Facebook wall posts

"We looked at three primary success metrics in relation to Wall Posts:
Comment Rate: number of comments as a percentage of fan base
'Like' Rate: number of 'likes' as a percentage of fan base
Engagement Rate: a combination of the above factoring in fan base size
Key takeaways from the research include:
Post Timing (Hour): Brands that posted outside of normal business hours had 20% higher engagement rates on their posts.
"Promotional" Keywords: Which keywords are most engaging when running a contest, sweepstakes or other offer?
Post Length: Posts between one and 80 characters had, on average, a 27% higher engagement rate than posts with over 80 characters, yet accounted for only 19% of all posts.
URL Shorteners: Engagement rates are three times higher for posts that used a full-length URL, as opposed to a URL shortener."
Source:  Research by Buddy Media, reported in their blog, 6th April 2011

Social network Badoo has 120m members

"It's a 120-million-member social network that's adding over 300,000 users a day, with more than 4.3 million daily photo and video uploads, and seven billion monthly page views. It has Facebook's fastest-growing app, with 570,000 new daily users, making it the third-biggest app of all after FarmVille and CityVille. Hugely profitable, it's forecast to generate hundreds of millions of dollars this year, and is being aggressively courted by venture-capital firms valuing it in the billions. And it's run from London by a secretive Russian serial entrepreneur who has steadfastly refused to be interviewed or photographed. Until now.
[...]
Still barely registering in Britain or the US, the free-to-use network -- on the web and via smartphones -- is a mass phenomenon in Brazil (14.1 million members), Mexico (nine million), France (8.2 million), Spain (6.5 million) and Italy (six million). Relying on word-of-mouth rather than any marketing spend, it has cracked the internet's eternal conundrum: how to persuade users to pay hard cash in a world drowning in free digital services and content, by charging members each time they want to boost their visibility to others searching for a date."

Source:  Wired, 6th April 2011

Lionel Messi acquired over 6m 'Likes' in his first 3 hours on Facebook - Updated

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Note:  We think that what's happened is that the old 'Messi' Facebook page was transitioned across to a new URL (Facebook.com/LeoMessi) and fans from his old board transitioned too.  There are also lots of other Facebook Messi pages like this one and this one.

Update 28th April - As of today he has 10,257,816 fans - so he has been adding approximately 1m fans a week, and these figures are real.

"I’m happy to get a few new likes a day on my Facebook profile, but not Leo Messi. He joined Facebook just a few short hours ago and now has over 6 and a half million fans and he’s not done yet. Just in the process of writing this article he’s already jumped up another 10 thousand.
Messi’s Facebook page was flooded with fans after he joined the site this morning, getting over 12,000 likes on his first wall post alone. It’s unclear at this point why Messi fans are flocking to his page in such numbers but at this point he actually has more fans than his sponsor Adidas who only has 1.8 million fans! Currently his page has over 6.6 million Likes in the just over 3 hours that his page has been active."

Source:  The Next Web, 6th April 2011

Advertising group Interpublic owns approximately 0.4% of Facebook

"Advertising group Interpublic Group owns a stake in Facebook that could be valued at roughly $200 million to $300 million, The Financial Times reported.
The exact size of the stake has not been disclosed, but people close to Interpublic say it owns slightly less than a half percent of Facebook, the newspaper said in its electronic edition. Interpublic paid less than $5 million for the stake in 2006, the newspaper said.
Interpublic's stake of 0.4 percent would be worth $200 million, based on a Facebook valuation of about $50 billion, the newspaper said."
Source:  Reuters, 4th April 2011

Note - Interpublic includes Initiative, McCann, Lowe, Draftfcb etc - full list here

119m twitter accounts follow at least one other person, but only 1.5m follow more than 512 people

"Fortunately, we know someone with full access to Twitter's API. Even more fortunate, this person took it upon himself to have an engineer write up some code and actually count the real number of users on Twitter.
Well, that's sort of what he did. What he actually did was look at follower/following statistics, to see how many users are following or are followed by a certain number of people.
Using data that is now just one month old, he found out that…
There were 119 million Twitter accounts following one or more other accounts.
There were 85 million accounts with one or more followers.
With these figures, and Twitter's claim of 175 million accounts, a little subtraction shows us that there are 56 million Twitter accounts following zero other accounts, and 90 million Twitter accounts with zero followers.
Those are some interesting figures, because they show us Twitter is much smaller than the "175 million!" number might lead us to believe.
But they still don't answer our question: How many active users does Twitter have?
To get close to answering that question with this data, we have to take a guess at how many accounts an "active" Twitter user follows.
At Facebook, a company source tells us, they believe that a user is not going to end up sticking around unless they make friends with 10 people.
So let's say an "active" Twitter user is someone who follows at least 10 other accounts.
How many such "active" Twitter users are there? Our source's API data shows that there are 56 million accounts on Twitter following 8 or more accounts. There are only 38 million following 16, and just 12 million following 64.
Your author, by the way, follows 700 people. There are only 1.5 million accounts on Twitter following 512 or more accounts."
Source:  Data unofficially collected from the Twitter 'firehose', reported by Business Insider, 31st March 2011