Data on people who rely on mobile devices for work

"Social boundaries are being redrawn and polite society is changing yet again. This quarter’s Mobile Workforce Report reveals where the lines are being drawn between life and work – separating personal from business time.
Highlights of this quarter’s study include:
41 percent of mobile workers have a tablet and an additional 34 percent of mobile workers intend to purchase a tablet in the next six months.
87 percent of mobile workers that own tablets use their tablets for at least some work. Among tablet owners, 27 percent have a tablet provided by their workplace and 73 percent have a personally owned tablet.
The average mobile worker works 240 hours a year longer than the workforce in general.
On the road, 68 percent of mobile workers will pay for a faster connection at a hotel even when a free network is also available.
43 percent of mobile workers store their smartphone within arm’s reach when they sleep at night. Those that do this are 60 percent more likely than average to wake during the night to check their smartphone.
Those living in Asia Pacific are the least rested with 55 percent of mobile workers waking at least occasionally to check their smartphone or tablet, and 19 percent wake every night. Europeans are the most rested with only 27 percent waking at least occasionally, and 4 percent waking every night.
29 percent of mobile workers find that their mobile technology usage causes friction in their personal relationships, specifically with their significant other or spouse.
When mobile workers wake up in the morning, 35 percent check email before anything else, including getting dressed or eating breakfast."

Source:  iPass Global Mobile Workforce Report, Q2 2011, May 2011

Note on methodology & definitions:

"This quarter’s iPass Mobile Workforce Report is based on information from more than 3,700 responses to an iPass survey of mobile enterprise employees at over 1,100 enterprises worldwide. The survey was conducted between April 1 and April 15, 2011, and represented employees across multiple age groups and geographies. The survey respondents were asked about their mobile productivity, work habits, and related experiences.

iPass Mobile Employee Definition: Any worker using any mobile device (including laptop, netbook, smartphone, cellphone, or tablet) who accesses networks (other than the corporate LAN or WLAN) for work purposes."

Online ad spend grew by 32% in Romania in 2010

"The online advertising market in Romania reached a value of EUR 20.4 million in 2010, up 32 percent compared to the previous year, according to the latest edition of the Romanian Online Advertising Study (ROADS) conducted by IAB Romania and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Romania.
“The increase of 32 percent of the online advertising market recorded in 2010, certifies the availability of more and more advertisers to invest in this sector, taking the total reported amount over EUR 20 million”, said Cristian Petriceanu, president of IAB Romania."

Source:  Romania Business Insider, 31st May 2011

Online ad spend in the US hit $7.3bn in Q1 2011

"Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $7.3 billion for the first quarter of 2011, representing a 23 percent increase over the same period in 2010, according to figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This marks the highest first-quarter revenue level ever for the industry and a significant increase over last year’s first-quarter revenue level, which had been the highest on record to date.
“The consistent and considerable year-over-year growth we’re seeing demonstrates that digital media is an increasingly popular destination for ad dollars, and for good reason,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. “As Americans spend more time online for information and entertainment purposes, digital advertising and marketing has emerged as one of the most effective tools businesses have to attract and retain customers.”
“The year-on-year 23 percent increase in first quarter revenues is not just impressive in its own right, but especially so when you take into account the fact that 2010 was a record-breaking year itself for Internet advertising revenue,” said David Silverman, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. “These numbers indicate that the interactive advertising field hasn’t simply bounced back since the recession; it’s growing with dynamic energy.”"

Source:  Press release from the IAB, 26th May 2011

Mobile payments company Square has shipped approx 500,000 card readers

"Square is a mobile payments startup company that has shipped about 500,000 card readers. Square reported about 1 million transactions in May and the company is processing about $3 million in mobile payments per day."
Source:  Pulse2, 23rd May 2011

48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

"Back in November we challenged you to up the volume of videos you uploaded to the site. And boy, did you take the bait. Today, more than 48 hours (two days worth) of video are uploaded to the site every minute, a 37% increase over the last six months and 100% over last year. From videos documenting a baby’s first steps in San Francisco, Calif., to a protest in Syria, to a commencement speech at Yale University, we’re continually impressed and inspired by the quality and breadth (in addition to quantity) of videos that you upload to the site every day. On our end, we're constantly evolving to provide the best video sharing and viewing experience for you from faster processing of uploads to longer video lengths to the launch of self-service live stream capabilities to partners."
Source:  Blog post by YouTube, 25th May 2011

Instagram has 4.25m registered users; 10 pictures are posted each second

"Here at TechCrunch Disrupt Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom has just announced a new milestone for photo service Instagram, at 10 user photos posted per second, up from 6 photos per second officially announced couple of months ago.
“We’re like that growth we saw last time was really large, until we saw today,” said Systrom. When asked whether Tumblr founder David Karp had any advice for Kevin, “Kevin seems to be a few steps ahead of me.”
Systrom also revealed that Instagram currently has 4.25 million registered users after only seven months of existence. “It turns out if you make something that people want it spreads really well,” says Systrom. “People wanted to take pictures and have them shared across multiple networks all at once.”"

Source:  TechCrunch, 24th May 2011

Apple Stores generated nearly $10 Billion in revenue in 2010

"Ten years later, there are 324 Apple Stores: 233 in the U.S., and 91 international locations. In terms of foot traffic, Apple saw its billionth retail visitor last month, with 71 million in the last quarter alone, up 51 percent year over year. The increasing number of visitors can be ascribed not only to the popularity of Apple products, but location of stores. In the U.S., the goal has always been to have 85 percent of the population within driving distance of an Apple Store, which has often meaning paying a premium for retail space. Bu it’s been a strategy that’s paid off.
For fiscal year 2010, just under $10 billion in sales came from Apple Stores. Last quarter, revenue from Apple retail was $3.19 billion, up 90 percent year over year. That means Apple Stores accounted for 13 percent of the company’s revenue, an impressive figure that puts them far ahead of competitors like Best Buy when measured by metrics like sales per square foot.
Last quarter, Apple sold 797,000 Macs in Apple Stores, up 32 percent year over year. One of every five Macs sold now comes from an Apple Store, but even more important is who is buying them. Going back at least five years, about half of those buying Macs in Apple Stores are new to the platform."
Source:  Retrospective on 10 years of Apple Stores, GigaOM, 19th May 2011

Amazon is selling more Kindle versions of books in the US than hardback and paperback books combined

"Amazon began selling hardcover and paperback books in July 1995. Twelve years later in November 2007, Amazon introduced the revolutionary Kindle and began selling Kindle books. By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books - hardcover and paperback - combined.
"Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books. We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly - we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon.com. "In addition, we're excited by the response to Kindle with Special Offers for only $114, which has quickly become the bestselling member of the Kindle family. We continue to receive positive comments from customers on the low $114 price and the money-saving special offers. We're grateful to our customers for continuing to make Kindle the bestselling e-reader in the world and the Kindle Store the most popular e-bookstore in the world."
Recent milestones for Kindle include:
Since April 1, for every 100 print books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle books. This includes sales of hardcover and paperback books by Amazon where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the number even higher.
So far in 2011, the tremendous growth of Kindle book sales, combined with the continued growth in Amazon's print book sales, have resulted in the fastest year-over-year growth rate for Amazon's U.S. books business, in both units and dollars, in over 10 years. This includes books in all formats, print and digital. Free books are excluded in the calculation of growth rates.
In the five weeks since its introduction, Kindle with Special Offers for only $114 is already the bestselling member of the Kindle family in the U.S.
Amazon sold more than 3x as many Kindle books so far in 2011 as it did during the same period in 2010.
Less than one year after introducing the UK Kindle Store, Amazon.co.uk is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books, even as hardcover sales continue to grow. Since April 1, Amazon.co.uk customers are purchasing Kindle books over hardcover books at a rate of more than 2 to 1."

Source:  Press release from Amazon, 19th May 2011

eBooks are easily outselling hardbacks in the UK

"In the UK, Amazon announced it had sold 242 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks since 1 April 2011. "Amazon.co.uk customers are choosing Kindle books more often than hardcovers at a rate of more than 2 to 1," said Gordon Willoughby, European director at Kindle. "This is truly astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books from Amazon.co.uk for over 13 years and Kindle books for only nine months."
A spokesman for Amazon.co.uk said the figures included sales of hardback books where no Kindle edition was available, and did not include free Kindle downloads. He said the website was not publishing comparisons between paperback sales and ebook downloads.
The UK figures represent a quicker uptake of Kindle ebooks than Amazon saw in the US, although John Howells, spokesman for Waterstone's, said its own Waterstones.com ebook sales had outstripped hardbacks for "quite a while".
"For every hardback we sell online, we sell four ebooks online," Howells said. "It doesn't really surprise us as we've been quite established as ebook sellers for some two and a half years now.""
Source:  The Guardian, 19th May 2011

Nearly 25% of phones sold in Q1 2011 were smartphones

"Worldwide mobile communication device sales to end users totaled 427.8 million units in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 19 percent from the first quarter of 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphones continued to outpace the rest of the market, and a newly competitive mid-tier smartphone market will drive smartphones into mass adoption and accelerate this trend.
“Smartphones accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in the first quarter of 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. “This share could have been even higher, but manufacturers announced a number of high-profile devices during the first quarter of 2011 that would not ship until the second quarter of 2011. We believe some consumers delayed their purchases to wait for these models.”
Overall, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan will have a smaller effect on the mobile communication devices market than initially anticipated. There is currently about six to seven weeks worth of inventory of finished products in the channel and about four weeks worth of inventory for components. Gartner estimates that manufacturers' sales into the channel will drop in the second quarter of 2011, while sales through to consumers will be flat."
[...]

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"Android and Apple's iOS continued to dominate the smartphone operating system (OS) wars (see Table 2). However, the big news in the first quarter of 2011 was Nokia's strategic alliance with Microsoft on Windows Phone 7, and the retirement of Symbian. “This will precipitate a competitors’ rush to capture Symbian's market share in the midtier,” said Ms. Cozza."

Source:  Press release from Gartner, 19th May 2011

Twitter has more than 300m registered accounts (unofficial estimate)

"Twitter just crossed the 300 million account threshold, according to a Twitter-tracking site called Twopcharts.
Twitter is currently adding 9.1 accounts per second. It will reach 301 million in the three hours after this post goes live.
But don't be fooled! Twitter doesn't actually have anywhere near 300 million real users.
In March, we plowed through the numbers and found that Twitter has less than 21 million "active" users."
Source:  Data from Twopcharts, reported by Business Insider, 18th May 2011
Note - here's a link to the earlier research from Business Insider

An estimated 5% of the American population own a Tablet device

"Of all the wireless devices that have hit the market in the past several years, tablets present the biggest commercial opportunity for media owners, in terms of what consumers are willing to pay for and consume on the devices. But for now, that opportunity is, at best, a mid-to-long-term one. Research from Nielsen—being presented for the first time today at the paidContent Mobile conference—shows that in the U.S. today, more than 95 percent of consumers have yet to buy one.
Despite the huge amount of hype that has surrounded the iPad and the many other tablets hitting the market—they include Android-based devices, the recently-launched Playbook from RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), and the soon-to-come TouchPad from HP —the researches note that as of Q1 2011, only 4.8 percent of the roughly 12,000 U.S. consumers surveyed have bought one. That number is likely even smaller in most other markets, even developed ones. Paul Lee, an director of TMT research with Deloitte in the UK, estimates that in the UK the number of tablet users is 1 out of every 60 people—or 1.7 percent."

Source:  Research from Nielsen and Deloitte (separately), reported by PaidContent, 18th May 2011

Note - Bear in mind that before the iPad almost no one had a Tablet, so since April 3rd 2010 nearly 5% of the US population have one.  This is meant to be a bad performance?  

Look at this chart from The Mobile Internet Report Setup by Morgan Stanley in December 2009 (chart 42) which shows the comparative adoption of technology devices including the iPod, Wii, Blackberry and so on.  All had exposure disproportionate to their sales in the early days, but all were very influential.  

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Spotify has 46% reach among Swedes under 35; radio has just 38% reach

"More than one in five Swedes listens to the much-hyped Swedish-Anglo music streaming service Spotify, according to a new report. Among younger listeners, that more than doubles to almost one in two.
The survey, carried out by TNS Sifo and based on interviews with 1,400 Swedes, found that Spotify has a 22% reach among the Swedish population. In comparison, accumulated radio listening, including public and commercial radio, has a 72% reach, while commercial web-radio broadcasts only reaches three out of 50 people.
However, among Swedes under 35, Spotify has a staggering 46% reach, comfortably above the 38% reach of all commercial radio put together. These figures are likely to trouble the large commercial radio providers, like Sweden’s listed media group MTG."
Source:  Data from TNS Sifo, reported by the Wall Street Journal, 16th May 2011

Apple sells 7% of all mobile phones, but makes 57% of all mobile phone profits

"Asymco yesterday published a pair of charts providing an interesting perspective on mobile phone company performance for the first quarter of 2011, comparing units sold against profitability.
In the first view, the eight largest mobile phone brands are depicted according to share of units sold during the quarter, with Apple (shown in dark orange) checking in at about 7% share among those top vendors. Apple is joined by Research in Motion and HTC in a category of "smartphone-only" vendors that were responsible for 16% of the overall units shipped during the quarter by the top vendors.
But in looking at the profitability of those top eight vendors, a very different view emerges with Apple accounting for about 57% of total profits and Research in Motion and HTC pitching in to give the smartphone-only vendors over 75% of the total profits among the top vendors. In addition, three of the five "diversified" vendors (LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson) drop out of the picture entirely in the new view as they were each unable to turn a profit on their mobile phone businesses during the quarter.

Source:  Data from Asymco, reported by Mac Rumors, 17th May 2011

Netflix accounts for 30% of all downstream internet traffic in the US

"Netflix video streaming is now the single largest source of peak downstream Internet traffic in the U.S., according to a new report by Sandvine. The streaming video service now accounts for 29.7 percent of peak downstream traffic, up from 21 percent last fall.
That puts Netflix above HTTP websites (18 percent), BitTorrent (11 percent), and YouTube (10 percent) as a source of downstream traffic during peak times in North America. (BitTorrent still accounts for half of all upstream traffic). As whole, “real-time entertainment” (which is mostly video streaming, but also includes streaming music) accounted for 49 percent of downstream traffic in March, 2011, versus 19 percent for P2P file sharing, and 17 percent for Web browsing.
Video files are so big that it does not take much usage for it to take over in terms of bandwidth consumed. But these numbers definitely point to a future where video accounts for more and more of the traffic on the Internet. As recently as last November, Web video alone accounted for an estimated 37 percent of Internet traffic."

Source:  Data from Sandvine, reported by TechCrunch, 17th May 2011

58.5% of British music buyers only buy CDs

"In 2011? Yes, according to trade group BPI, which just released the stat as part of its 'Annual Yearbook'. Actually, the 58.5 percent figure is for 2010 and also includes some fringe physical formats, though CDs easily dominate this category.  "Taken as a whole, 58.5 percent of music buyers bought physical formats only in 2010, down from 65.8 percent in 2009," the BPI shared.    
Looks like the CD is a slow-leaking balloon.  But on the flip side, 17.2 percent only purchased digital formats, up from12.4 percent in 2009.  And, 24.3 percent of buyers mixed-and-matched their formats."  

Source:  Data from the BPI Annual Yearbook, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 16th May 2011

Note - more data and a great chart at the DigitalMusicNews site

A Facebook account with 1m fans generates an average of 826 likes and 309 comments per post

"Social media brand monitoring platform, Simplify360, explored the relationship between the number of Facebook fans and engagement level to reveal that on an average, each new post generates 826 likes and 309 comments.
The research firm took 50 Facebook fan pages with a random mix of brands from all over the world from consumer brands, to sports teams, to celebrities."

Source:  Data from Simplify360, reported by The Next Web, 17th May 2011

Lady Gaga was the first Twitter use to reach 10m followers

"Hurrah there is a winner and it is Lady Gaga. The queen of pop has become the first Twitter user (really superstar user) to soar past the 10 million follower mark. She beat Canadian popster Justin Bieber to take the 10 million crown.
Lady Gaga passed the milestone yesterday and has since gone on to add another 50,000 followers to give her a grand and rising total of 10,052,574 compared to Bieber’s 9,662,626 followers."

Source:  The Wall blog, 16th May 2011

There are 477m people online in China

"The number of Internet users in China reached 477 million at the end of March and websites registered with the proper authorities climbed to 3.82 million, a senior telecommunication official said Monday.
Wang Jianwen, deputy head of the Telecommunications Administration Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced the figures while addressing a meeting on creating a healthy online environment."

Source:  Xinhuanet, 16th May 2011

Earlier - January - 457m (source - CNNIC)

British consumers have spent more than £1bn on digital music

"UK music fans have spent more than £1 billion on digital music since the launch of legal online music services in 2004, with almost a third of the total (£316.5m) spent in 2010 alone, new figures published today in the BPI’s Annual Yearbook 2011 revealed.
Retail spending on digital albums increased by 23% to £146m in 2010, with more than 56.5m digital albums sold since the format launched in 2006 – according to the data, which is compiled for the BPI by the Official Charts Company.  In 2010, 21.0m digital albums were sold, with the format now accounting for 17.5% – one in six – of all albums sold in the UK.
UK consumers splashed out £132m on digital single tracks last year, an increase of 12% year-on-year.  In total, 158.6m single tracks were sold digitally in 2010, with more than 579.4m sold since the first legal music stores opened for business in 2004.  Digital now represents 98.7% of all singles sales.
21 by Adele is the UK’s biggest selling digital album of all time, having leapfrogged The Fame by Lady Gaga and Kings of Leon’s Only By The Night into top slot since its release in January 2011.  34 albums have now sold more than 100,000 copies digitally, with 6 of the top 10 represented by UK artists.
The UK’s top-three selling digital tracks since sales began in 2004 were revealed as I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas, Sex On Fire by Kings Of Leon and Poker Face by Lady Gaga.  74 digital tracks have now sold more than 500,000 copies in the UK to date."
Source:  Press releases from the BPI, 12th May 2011

Interest in 'super injunctions' drove Twitter's UK traffic to it's highest ever levels

"Twitter had its highest ever peak in UK Internet visits yesterday (9 May 2011) due to the extraordinary revelations of the super injunction scandal, which exposed the identities of several high profile celebrities.
Visits to Twitter increased by 14% on 9 May, accounting for 0.49% of total Internet visits that day. Twitter also became the 17th most popular website in the UK yesterday, up from the rank of 19th on 8 May 2011. In the last week there were over 500 unique search term variations which included the word ‘super injunction’ typed into Google, Bing or Yahoo!. Searches for the term ‘super injunction’ have increased by 5000% in the last month, as stories surrounding the controversial topic have peaked curiosity in UK Internet users."

Source:  Analysis by Robin Goad of Experian Hitwise, in his blog, 10th May 2011

There are 7.5m Facebook users under the age of 13 in the US

"A survey published in the June issue of Consumer Reports found that "of the 20 million minors who actively use Facebook," 7.5 million were younger than 13 and more than five million were younger than 10. Facebook's terms of service require that users be at least 13.
The report tracks with other studies including a 2010 study by McAfee that found 37 percent of 10 to 12 year olds are on Facebook and a study (PDF) released in April from the London School of Economics EU Kids Online project that found that 38 percent of 9- to 12-year-old European children used social-networking sites, with one in five using Facebook, "rising to over 4 in 10 in some countries."
Jeff Fox, technology editor for Consumer Reports, said it was troubling that the survey found "a majority of parents of kids 10 and under seemed largely unconcerned by their children's use of the site." In a press statement, Consumer Reports said that "Using Facebook presents children and their friends and family with safety, security and privacy risks" and that, "In the past year, the use of Facebook has exposed more than five million online U.S. households to some type of abuse including virus infections, identity theft, and--for a million children--bullying.""

Source:  Research by Consumer Reports, reported by CNET, 10th May 2011

Note - while it doesn't explicitly say so, I'm assuming that this is US data only.  With over 600m global users, I'd expect far more than 7.5m to be under 13

The top 10 most effective promoted tweets

Source: AdAge, 9th May 2011

Apple has overtaken Google to become the world's most valuable brand

"Apple is the world's most valuable brand with a value of $153.3 billion, according to Millard Brown Optimor's annual "BrandZ: Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands" study released today. In just one year, Apple's brand value has increased by 84 percent, the study said.
Google, the leader in the study for four years running, was knocked down to second place this year, losing 2 percent of its brand value to end up at $111.5 billion.
IBM, McDonald's, and Microsoft rounded out the top five with brand values of $100.8 billion, $81 billion, and $78.2 billion in brand value, respectively."
Source:  Data from Millward Brown Optimor's Brandz survey, reported by CNET, 9th May 2011
Methodology:  "Millard Brown Optimor's BrandZ study is derived from both financial performance and "in-depth" interviews of consumers about their perceptions of brands and why they choose a specific product over another. The company's database includes 2 million such interviews from 30 countries."
Full report available here

The number of people accessing social network through mobiles daily in the UK has risen by 80% in 12 months

"In the UK, mobile owners are turning to their devices to keep up to date on their online social status with increasing frequency. Social media usage on mobile phones has nearly doubled in the UK since a year ago. In March 2010, 4.4 million people accessed social media sites or blogs through their mobile phone almost every day, while 10.1 million accessed it at least once throughout the month. A year later, it has increased by 80% to 7.9 million mobile users accessing social media almost every day, and 14.7 million users accessing it at least once a month."

Source:  comScore Media Metrix, 9th May 2011

One third of all items posted to Facebook are from mobile devices

"Some stats have been published, by researchers and the company themselves, about mobile usage of Facebook. But to content creators, one of the most important uses of the social network is when users create posts, sometimes posting original content, often sharing articles and media found elsewhere on the web. I was unable to find much data about how much of this activity occurs via mobile devices, so I decided to research my own.
I used a random sample set of more than 70,000 Facebook public posts (those from users with open privacy settings). The data includes status updates, videos, links and photos. 32.69% of those posts were created from mobile devices. The mobile Facebook website, m.facebook.com lead mobile usage with more than 18% of posts created through it."

Source:  Research by Dan Zarrella, posted onto his blog, 9th May 2011 

Smartphone shipments grew by 80% Y-o-Y to 100m units in Q1 2011

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"The worldwide smartphone market grew 79.7% year over year in the first quarter of 2011 (1Q11), driven by a combination of vendors releasing highly anticipated models, widespread availability of older smartphones at lower prices, and sustained end-user demand. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, smartphone vendors shipped a total of 99.6 million units in 1Q11, nearly double from the 55.4 million units in the first quarter of 2010.
"Conditions in the smartphone market are creating a perfect storm for sustained smartphone growth," says Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Phone Technology and Trends team. "First, vendors are increasingly emphasizing smartphones as the key to their own growth. Second, selection has proliferated from mostly high-end devices to include more mid-range and entry-level offerings. Third, pricing has become increasingly competitive, with even high-end devices available at low price points. Finally, users continue to seek greater utility from their mobile phone beyond voice, and smartphones have been the ideal solution. Altogether, these add up to continued smartphone growth throughout the year."
The strong demand for smartphones also means the market will remain highly competitive and fragmented. "The rise of Android as a prominent mobile operating system has allowed several suppliers to gain share quickly," adds Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. "Also, the relatively nascent state of smartphone adoption globally means there is ample room for several suppliers to comfortably co-exist, at least for the short term.""

Source:  Press release from IDC, 5th May 2011

84% of Italians with internet access search for product info online, then buy in-store

"When it comes to purchasing decisions, the study revealed that the physical retail outlets continue to be important sources of information. While more and more people say they inform themselves before they go to the store, once inside, they still want to learn more or receive reassurance on their choice. For example, when purchasing consumer electronics 47 percent of Italian consumers already know about the products, but they want further information once in the store.
At the same time, the Internet continues to play an increasingly important role as a source of information to support purchases. Fully 84 percent of consumers with Internet access (31 million individuals) search for information online and then buy at the store – an increase of two percentage points vs. 2009 and a rise of eight points vs. 2007. Seventy-four percent compare prices of products/services before buying (+3 p.p. vs. 2009, +9 p.p. vs. 2007) and 37 percent of Italian consumers order online and pick up later at the retailer (+2 p.p. vs. 2009, +5 p.p. vs. 2007).
User-generated content on the Internet and dialogue between peers is rising in importance as a credible form of support to the purchasing process. One-in-three (32%) consumers who use the Internet (42% of the Reloaded cluster) consider the opinions of others on forums, blogs and social networks as important and relevant input when deciding whether to buy a product or service. Additionally, perceived barriers to Internet shopping continue to decline. Thirty-one percent of Italians (+9 p.p. vs. 2009) believe the web meets their personal needs, while 26 percent of Internet users say they check out products in the store before buying online (+5 p.p. vs. 2009)."
Source:  The Multichannel Survey, a four-year running joint project by Nielsen, Connexia and the Milan Polytechnic School of Management, reported in a blog post by Nielsen, 11th April 2011

Portability & ease of use are the most common reasons for using a tablet instead of a PC or laptop

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Source:  Blog post by Nielsen, 5th May 2011
Note - US data only

Crowdfunding site Kickstarter has collected over $40m in funding for projects

Funding pledged per month (not cumulative)

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"Total Dollars Pledged: $53,107,672
Dollars Collected (successful projects): ~$40 million
Dollars Uncollected (unsuccessful projects): ~$7 million
Live Dollars (currently funding projects): ~$6 million
Collection Rate: ~85%
Kickstarter operates on an all-or-nothing funding model where each project’s goal must be reached to be funded. This pie chart is a great window to how this has worked.
Of the $53 million that has been pledged, $40 million has been collected by successfully funded projects and $6 million is still live (meaning pledged to projects that are still funding). The remaining $7 million is the amount of money not collected — pledged to projects that did not meet their funding goals.
Still with us? Of the $47 million pledged to projects whose funding has ended ($40M collected + $7M uncollected), approximately 85% of the funds ($40M) were collected. This 85% collection rate has stayed quite steady over the past two years. It’s safe to expect that 85% of the $6 million that’s currently pledged to live projects will also be collected."

Source:  Blog post by Kickstarter, 28th April 2011

Over a million people in the UK used Facebook statuses to discuss the Royal Wedding on the day of the wedding

"Over a million people in the UK used Facebook statuses to discuss the Royal Wedding in the past 24 hours.
During this morning alone some 684,399 status updates referencing the wedding were posted in just 4 hours in the UK – equating to an average of 47 mentions every second.
Many people in the UK were so excited they couldn’t sleep, with just under 500 people updating about the pending nuptials per hour ahead of 8am
Much has been said about the US obsession with today’s wedding – and this was reflected in our numbers – with greater numbers of American Facebook users posting updates than those from the UK – 1.953 million to the UK’s 1.004 million.
So who were people talking about?
David Beckham’s arrival led to a surge in discussion – with 9,000 mentions of his name in just 20 minutes!
Just under double the number of people were talking about David Beckham than Victoria Beckham
The Queen and Prince Philip didn’t even feature in the top list of discussed people – and Prince Andrew was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, we saw Harry’s position at number three and fledgling Royal celebrity Pippa Middleton at number 8
Kate’s rebrand into ‘Princess Catherine’ has begun in earnest, with nearly 2,000 people mentioning her new name for the first time after the ceremony
Prince Beatrice’s hat became the subject of a Facebook fan page – ‘Princess Beatrice’s Ridiculous Royal Wedding Hat’ (4000 fans)
US versus UK
Despite not featuring in the top ten list in the UK, in the US the Queen was the 14th most discussed topic – with a position in the list similar to that of Victoria Beckham in the UK.
Here’s the list for the UK:
1 - Kate Middleton - 131,385 mentions
2 - Prince William - 104,747 mentions
3 - Prince Harry - 64,107 mentions
4 - David Beckham - 22,421 mentions
5 - Victoria Beckham - 12,346 mentions
6 - Elton John - 12,283 mentions
7 - Princess Diana - 11,103 mentions
8 - Pippa Middleton - 8,619 mentions
9 - Prince Charles - 6,791 mentions
10 - Princess Beatrice - 4,439 mentions
11 - Princess Catherine - 1,928 mentions
12 - Princess Eugenie - 1,385 mentions
13 - Guy Ritchie - 290 mentions"
Source:  'Note' (Blog post) by Facebook on 29th April 2011
Note - this continues at length - Facebook have done a really good job with blowing their own trumpet here!

TV viewing figures for the Royal Wedding around the world

"The Royal Wedding was one of the best watched UK TV broadcasts of all time, even though its ratings were only marginally higher than an Only Fools and Horses special.
Some 26.2 million viewers watched Prince William and Kate Middleton tie the knot across BBC1, ITV1, BBC News channel, Sky News and Sky Living.
That is shy of the 28.4 million that watched Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding in 1981 but higher than the Only Fools Christmas special from 1996, which clocked up 24.4 million.
Most UK viewers by far watched the Royal Wedding on the BBC. Its coverage, hosted by Huw Edwards, beat ITV's by three to one with a peak audience of 19.3 million.
Before the wedding some newspapers made ambitious predictions that it would be watched by as many as two billion people around the globe - almost a third of the world's population.
[...]
The Nielsen Company said that an average of 22.7 million viewers at home in the United States watched the wedding live.
While that figure is not to be sniffed at (especially so because many viewers would have had to get up in the middle of the night or very early morning to tune in) it is not a patch on the giant audiences networks in the US can command.
To put it into context, February's Super Bowl, the most watched single broadcast in US history, drew a US audience of 111 million.
In India, 42.1 million tuned into Friday's ceremony according to the ratings agency aMap. But again the country's interest in the Royals pales in comparison to its love for sport.
As the Times of India reports, this year's cricket World Cup final attracted an audience of almost 67 million, more than one-and-a-half times the peak Indian viewership of the Royal Wedding."

Source:  The Drum, 2nd May 2011

£15.1m was raised for Comic Relief 2011 through text messaging

"Mobile phone users could donate to Comic Relief by pledging £1, £5 or £10 by texting "Yes" to number 70010, organised by Mobile Interactive Group (MIG). Mobile operators waived their usual fees.
Mobile donations accounted for £15.1m of the £74.4m raised so far.
Radha Chakraborty, operations director for Comic Relief, said: "SMS donations provide a valuable channel for us and appeal to a wide audience."
Earlier that week, those following the trek of a clutch of celebrities across the Kaisut Desert in northern Kenya could donate £1 by texting "DESERT" to 70011, while a third number was set up for viewers to donate £5 for the airing of a documentary about the trek on 18 March."
Source:  Brand Republic, 3rd May 2011

Stats on bog posts, tweets and Foursquare checkins after the death of Osama bin Laden

"In less than 12 hours since the tweeting began we saw almost 40,000 blog post and news articles and an astounding 2.2 million tweets all talking about Osama Bin Laden. As well, while no surprise that people in the US were talking the most about this event a look at our geo-location map shows us that people all over the world were tweeting about the news.
Some other interesting things that I noticed was that people were making jokes about Foursquare leading to the finding of Bin Laden. As time went on, people started started using Foursquare to check into places associated with the death of Bin Laden. Some people were checking in to the location where Bin Laden was found, while others were checking in to a “Post Osama Bin Laden World”.
By 10am(EST) this morning I was able to find 11,570 tweets that made reference to Foursquare and Bin Laden or were check-in’s tweeted out that were related to Bin Laden."
Source:  Sysomos blog, 2nd May, 2011

1.5m people paid for music subscription services in the US in 2010

"Music subscription services had 1.5 million paying users in the US last year, up from 1.2 million in 2009. That’s according to new figures from the RIAA, which says revenues for these services still fell from $213 million in 2009 to $201 million in 2010. The RIAA’s report also reveals the continuing decline in mobile music sales, which fell from 306 million units in 2009 to 221 million in 2010, with ringtones down 41%, ringback tones down 26% and even full-track music downloads down 23%. 1.16 billion download singles were sold in the US in 2010 – up 2.1% year-on-year – for a value of $1.37 billion, up 12% as higher prices on iTunes took effect."

Source:  Data from the RIAA, reported by MusicAlly, 3rd May 2011
Full stats from the RIAA here

Internet users & time spent by market in Europe, March 2011

Click to enlarge

Source:  Press release from comScore Media Metrix, 4th May 2011

The Royal Wedding broke online streaming records

"Livestream, the digital company which broadcast the wedding live online, said that its audience topped 300,000 concurrent viewers, the largest audience ever for a live streamed event.
Major web hosting company Akamai, said that the event broke broader live streaming records as well. A representative for the company explained that “concurrent live streams of royal wedding on Akamai surpassed the 1.6 million peak set by World Cup in June of 2010.”
The royal wedding also dominated social media sites, with dozens of mentions every second on Twitter and Facebook.
The royal wedding was mentioned around 67 times a second on Twitter as viewers took to the social network to publish their thoughts on the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
On Facebook the wedding dominated status updates, with around 74 mentions every second.
The trending topics on both sites were dominated by the wedding.
More than a million people posted status updates about the wedding on Facebook, with a particular surge in activity when David Beckham arrived. Almost two million Americans were also discussing the wedding.
"These numbers show the sheer scale of the public's response to the royal wedding," said Joanna Shields, Facebook's vice president for Europe. "Millions are using Facebook to share what they think about every last detail of the ceremony.""

Source:  The Daily Telegraph, 4th May 2011

Global internet video use was 26% higher on the day of the Royal Wedding

"Sandvine’s report on Royal Wedding internet use underscores several main points…
The event was a television event: TV sucked users from their internet screens.
But internet video use, for viewers not at a TV, jumped - up 26 percent over normal Fridays. “YouTube (NSDQ: GOOG) remained the largest source of video when measured in absolute bandwidth.” BBC iPlayer traffic was up nearly sevenfold.
Social media was also popular - Twitter and Facebook traffic saw a day peak during the ceremony itself and the balcony kiss.
A more modest mobile spike - “Mobile networks experienced larger, but more compact surges, suggesting ... people were being efficient with data usage, only using mobile devices for the highlights.”

[...]

Akamai reported that the wedding was the sixth-largest web event ever, measured in terms of page-views per minute.

Bear in mind - Royal Wedding day was a public holiday in the UK; most people were not at their work computers."

Source:  Data from Sandvine and Akamai, reported by PaidContent, 4th May 2011
Full pdf of the Sandvine report here

Pandora users have made over 10 billion 'thumb' ratings

"Pandora has now clocked an impressive 10 billion thumb ratings, according to details disclosed by founder Tim Westergren in Los Angeles. "We've now reached 10 billion thumbs," Westergren told an audience at Musexpo at the W Hotel in Hollywood on Monday, and the accomplishment was later blogged on pandora.com.  "Of the many milestones we've hit over the past 6 years, this is perhaps the one that makes us most proud," Westergren relayed.   "Little by little we are all collectively creating a music discovery engine that might just deliver on the grand promise of the web - a completely personalized listening experience for every user, and an effective outlet for tens of thousands of deserving artists." "

Source:  DigitalMusicNews, 2nd May 2011

Tencent's microblog has 160m registered users

"During the annual conference recently held in Beijing by Chinese internet giant Tencent's online advertising arm, Tencent Mind, Tencent VP Sun Zhonghuai announced that as of March 31, Tencent Microblog had 160 mln registered users and 93 mln monthly active users, with more than 1 bln updates posted each month. More than 10 mln users are following twelve or more verified celebrity accounts on the service. More than 20,000 web and desktop applications hook into the Tencent Microblog API, a figure growing by more than 1,000 per day, and Tencent has partnered with 8,000 websites - and an additional 300 per week - for the service. More than 3,500 advertisers have signed on for the service, with more than 40 corporate marketing campaigns currently active on Tencent Microblog."

Source:  BiaNews, reported by Marbridge Daily, 4th May 2011

More than 56m people watched the TV broadcast of President Obama's announcement about Osama bin Laden

"On Sunday, May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that U.S. military forces killed Osama bin Laden in a targeted attack. The address was carried live from approximately 11:35 PM- 11:44 PM ET on 9 networks. The sum of the average audience for those networks was 56,512,179 viewers, with a combined household rating of 33.9. The networks carrying the address included ABC, CBS, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, FOXNC, HLN and MSNBC."

Source:  Nielsen, 3rd May 2011

Instagram is growing at an estimated 130,000 users per week

"We sampled data from that API and loaded it into an RJMetrics Dashboard for analysis. This yielded detailed new insights into Instagram’s growth and user adoption.
Please note that these are estimates extracted from a sample set, so there may be a small margin of error (more details on our methods can be found at the end of the article). I provide a full breakdown below, but here are some highlights:
Instagram is currently adding 130,000 registered users per week
Instagram’s 2.2 million users upload 3.6 million new photos per week (or 6 photos per second)
37.5 percent of registered users have never uploaded a photo
5 percent of users have uploaded over 50 photos
65 percent follow nobody, and only 12 percent of users follow more than 10 people
For users who upload at least one photo, there is a 45 percent chance they will upload a photo the following week
Those same users have a 25 percent chance they will upload a photo 12 weeks later, representing a significantly stronger retention rate than Twitter."
Source:  Techcrunch, 10th March 2011

The death of Osama Bin Laden created huge levels of internet traffic

"As news of Osama bin Laden's death made its way across the globe Sunday night, Internet traffic exploded.
Twitter: At the news event's peak, Twitter said that users were sending off 5,106 tweets per second. That makes the volume of tweets surrounding the event the second-highest in Twitter's history.
It also represented the highest sustained rate of tweets per second in the company's history -- from 10:45 p.m. ET on Sunday through 2:20 a.m. on Monday, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second
The 5,106-peak tweet-per-second peak was still far short of the 6,939 tweets per second record set when Japan brought in the 2011 new year.
[...]
News sites: The bin Laden story resulted in a peak of more than 4.1 million page views per second on the news websites supported and tracked by content delivery network Akamai (AKAM). Akamai delivers about 20% of the Internet's content, and it supports popular news sites like nytimes.com, reuters.com, bbc.com and usatoday.com.
The peak occurred at about 11:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, right as President Obama's made his live, televised statement. Just an hour before the news broke, there were roughly 2.5 million page views per second on those pages.
Despite the unusually high volume of traffic, Akamai said it did not rank in the company's top 10 news events for highest page-view peaks.
The largest peak in Internet traffic came at noon on June 24, 2010, when there were simultaneous World Cup qualifying matches as well as the longest-ever Wimbledon match -- all being played at the same time. Those events resulted in a peak of 10.4 million page views per second on the news sites Akamai supports.
Last week's royal wedding ranked sixth on Akamai's list, with nearly 5.4 million page views per second. It was the second-highest non-sports-related Internet event, right behind the 2010 U.S. mid-term elections.
All of the largest peaks in the top 13 were from events that occurred in 2010 or 2011 -- which is unsurprising, since Internet usage continues to rise globally. But ranking at No. 14 is the election of President Obama, which occurred in November 2008.
The biggest Internet spikes tend to overwhelm servers and rendered some websites unresponsive. News of Michael Jackson's death famously brought down Google News, TMZ.com, latimes.com and even AOL Instant Messenger, thanks to high traffic demands."

Source:  CNN, 2nd May 2011
Also - official tweet from Twitter:
"Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 - 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second [1/3]
At 11p.m. ET, there were 5,106 Tweets per second. At 11:45p.m. ET, when Pres. Obama finished his remarks, there were 5,008 TPS [2/3]
Note: The TPS numbers we reported last night were incomplete [3/3]
An even more precise update: Twitter averaged 3440 TPS from 10:45 to 12:30pm ET last night"
& a chart of the Twitter levels on Flickr

Home entertainment spending in the US fell by 10% Y-o-Y in Q1 2011

"Consumer purchases of newly released DVDs fell precipitously in the first three months of the year -- declines that were not made up by gains in sales of Blu-ray discs or emerging streaming services.
Digital Entertainment Group reported Monday that overall spending on home entertainment fell to $4.2 billion, down 9.8% from the same period a year earlier. Hardest hit were new-movie purchases, which fell 19% for the first quarter compared with a year ago, when four major blockbuster films were released on DVD and Blu-ray disc.
Physical and digital sales amounted to $2.2 billion for the period, off markedly from $2.7 billion a year ago. Blu-ray disc purchases were up 10% from a year ago, but these sales were not enough to make up for falling DVD sales.
The movie-rental market -- which includes not only traditional chain stores, but also streaming services such as Netflix Inc. and kiosk services such as Redbox -- made modest gains for the quarter. Total consumer spending on home movie rentals rose 2.5% to nearly $2 billion. Big gains in physical and digital subscription services offset declines at retail stores."

Source:  Data from the Digital Entertainment Group, reported by the Los Angeles Times, 2nd May 2011

Chinese social networking site Renren has 131m registered users, but only 31m visit at least once a month

"According to its prospectus, Renren has 131m activated users – people who have been through a multi-step registration process which involves submitting personal information, and replying to a verification e-mail. But it later disclosed that only 31m of them use the service at least once a month.
[...]
According to bankers, Renren generates just 80 cents per user compared with $4 for Facebook. “Monetisation at Renren is two years behind Facebook – that’s where the opportunity is,” said one banker working on the deal."
Source:  Financial Times, 29th April 2011