US online advertising spend rose 23.2% Y-o-Y in H1 2011

"Internet ad revenues rose 23.2 percent—to a record $14.9 billion—in the first half of 2011, according to figures released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC US). The rate of growth more than doubled year-over-year, as last year’s first-half ad revenues of $12.1 billion had represented an 11.3 percent increase over 2009.
Internet ad revenues for the second quarter alone also reached new heights, increasing 24.1 percent to $7.7 billion. That performance compares to last year’s same-period revenues of $6.2 billion, up 13.9 percent from 2009.
Display-related advertising—which includes banner ads, rich media, digital video and sponsorships—totaled more than $5.5 billion in the first six months of 2011. Display increased 27.1 percent over the same period in 2010, substantially exceeding the previous year’s growth rate of 16 percent. Digital video once again commanded double-digit growth—up 42.1 percent over a year ago, and moved close to the $1 billion mark with $891 million in half year 2011 revenue.
Display accounted for 37 percent of all interactive spend in the first half of 2011, with search remaining the leading online category at 49 percent of the total—nearly $7.3 billion. Search and Display each grew about 27 percent year-over-year, with Search more than doubling its previous year’s growth rate of 11.6 percent.
In other online ad formats, dollars spent on lead generation increased 25.4 percent over the same period in 2010, but classified ad dollars were down 2 percent and email spend decreased 34.2 percent.
IAB and PwC US looked at revenue models supporting online ads. Ads using performance-based models increased faster than ads using impression-based models, rising to $9.6 billion. Impression-based ad spend did grow by 10.8 percent, though that pricing model accounted for only 31 percent of total ads, down from 35 percent year-over-year."
Source:  Press release from the IAB, 28th September 2011

Facebook's share of time spent online in the US, by day of week

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Source:  Data from Hitwise Experian, reported in their blog, 27th September 2011

Where US consumers spend their money

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Source:  Data for 2010 from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported by the New York Times, 27th September 2011

Propensity to engage in mCommerce in the UK

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Source:  Data from MobileSquared, reported in a press release, 29th September 2011

Smartphone operating system shares in Europe

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Source:  Press release from comScore, based on their MobiLens service, 13th September 2011
Based on UK, France, Germany, Italy & Spain only

Spotify gained a million new users after integration with the Facebook homepage ticker

"At f8 last Thursday, music services such as Spotify, Vevo, Rdio and Mog gained the ability to publish the listening activity of their users to Facebook’s new home page Ticker. The exposure to the friends of their users through the tickers has led to big gains for some music partners.
Most significantly, Spotify has gained one million new monthly active Facebook-integrated users since f8 to reach 4.4 million MAU. It spiked from 1.12 million to 3.25 million daily active users the day after f8, and appears to be settling back to roughly a quarter million new DAU. Rdio, MOG, and Deezer have also seen significant gains in their numbers of Facebook-integrated users."
Source:  Data from Inside Facebook, collected from looking at app users, reported on 26th September 2011

The differences between hardcore social gamers and casual gamers

"The social gamer sector is a large, and growing, market – 41% of all U.S. Internet users have played social games.  That amounts to 98 million in the U.S. alone.
Hardcore Social Gamers resemble traditional core gamers demographically: While a majority of casual social gamers are women (61%) and over 40-years-old (62%), the reverse is true for hardcore social gamers: 55% of hardcore social gamers are male and 57% are under the age of 40 (with an average age of 37).
Hardcore Social Gamers are playing lots of games.  Hardcore social gamers tend to play multiple games simultaneously (76% playing two or more).  In fact, nearly half (47%) of hardcore social gamers are playing three or more social games, while 28% are playing 4 or more social games concurrently.  Clearly, these are dedicated game enthusiasts.
Hardcore Social Gamers exhibit greater level of gameplay engagement - The level of commitment and engagement of gamer segments varies.  When it comes to amount of gameplay time, hardcore social gamers far exceed casual social gamers.  This research indicates that 68% of hardcore social gamers are playing three or more hours per day of any game, with 30% playing social games for more than an hour per session.  By contrast, only 43% of casual social gamers spend three or more hours daily playing games of any type.  And, they play social games in short bursts – 54% indicate their typical session length is 30 minutes or less."
Source:  Press release from Kabam, 22nd September 2011
Note - A hardcore social gamer is defined as "players who play strategy, RPG, or other ‘core’ segment games (MMO, action, FPS, MOBA) on a social network site."
Full study here

Google Plus has an estimated 43m users

"If the algorithms are all working right, then Google+’s “unofficial statistician” Paul Allen believes that Google+ now has over 43 million users. Allen, whose name you might know as being the founder of Ancestry.com has a method whereby he estimates the total number of users on Google+ based upon uncommon surnames.
In the past, according to PlusHeadlines, Allen has been startlingly accurate:
July 4th – 1.7 million users
July 9th – 4.5 million users
July 12 – 10 million users
September 9th – 28.7 million users
September 22nd – 43.4 million users
These numbers tie up almost exactly with confirmed reports that we’ve seen in the past, as well as our own findings from Google employees."

Source:  The Next Web, 22nd September 2011

Facebook has more than 800m active users (full stats)

"People on Facebook
More than 800 million active users
More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
Activity on Facebook
There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
More than 2 billion posts are liked and commented on per day
On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day
Global Reach
More than 70 languages available on the site
More than 75% of users are outside of the United States
Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application
Platform
On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
Every month, more than 500 million people use an app on Facebook or experience Facebook Platform on other websites
More than 7 million apps and websites are integrated with Facebook
Mobile
There are more than 350 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices
There are more than 475 mobile operators globally working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products"
Source:  Facebook Statistics, retrieved 27th September 2011

Android accounts for over 50% of the mobile ad impressions on the Millenial Media mobile network

"Today, we released our August Mobile Mix Report, and for the first time, we combined smartphones and connected devices when breaking down impressions on our network by operating system. When looking at both connected devices and smartphones, we saw that Android had a 54 percent share and iOS had a 28 percent share."

Source:  Blog post from Millennial Media, 23rd September 2011

Instagram has 10m users

"Last October, we launched Instagram live in the App Store. Today, less than one year later, we’re happy to announce that the Instagram community now consists of over 10 million registered users.
As we prepare to celebrate our first year in the App Store, we’d like to extend our thanks to each and every one of the ten million folks who have taken the time to participate in Instagram by sharing small moments of life through gorgeous mobile photos."
Source:  Blog post by Instagram, 26th September 2011

5 of the top 10 markets where most time is spent on social networking sites are in Latin America

"Latin Americans are strongly engaged with social networking. Half of the top 10 worldwide markets ranked by time spent on social networking sites are in Latin America, with Argentina leading the region at 10 hours per month in June 2011.
The Latin American social networking audience is nearly equal in its composition of males and females, but females account for a larger share of social networking time spent (53.6 percent) compared to males (46.4 percent). This trend was most significant in Brazil where females accounted for 58.7 percent of all social networking time spent.
People age 15-24 demonstrated the strongest engagement on social networks, accounting for nearly half (48.0 percent) of all time spent in the category. This trend was most significant in Venezuela where visitors age 15-24 accounted for 3 of every 5 social networking minutes (58.2 percent).
Facebook.com strongly led the social networking market in Latin America, reaching more than 91 million visitors. Windows Live Profile ranked #2 with more than 35.5 million visitors in the region. Orkut held the #3 spot with 34.4 million visitors, largely driven by the site’s popularity in Brazil, while Twitter.com ranked #4 with 24.3 million visitors.
Five of the top 10 markets ranked by Facebook.com reach are in Latin America. Facebook reached 90.9 percent of all online users in Chile, ranking as the most penetrated market in Latin America.
In Brazil, Orkut ranked as the most-visited social networking destination, reaching 35.7 million visitors, an increase of 20 percent from June 2010. Facebook.com, which is the second largest social networking site in Brazil, witnessed strong growth increasing 192 percent to 24.5 million visitors.
Venezuela is the only country in Latin America in which Twitter.com rises to second place in the social networking ranking. One in four online users in Venezuela visited Twitter.com in June (26.5 percent reach).
Recently launched Google+ reached 28 million visitors worldwide in the first 33 days of its public existence (June 29, 2011 to July 31, 2011). Brazil ranked as the sixth largest market for the site globally, contributing 793,923 visitors."
Source:  Press release from comScore, 20th September 2011

The American Social Media Landscape

The Social Media Landscape

View more presentations from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project

Spotify has 2m paying subscribers

"Streaming music service Spotify now has more than 2 million paying subscribers in eight countries, according to a new report today.
Spotify saw a huge boost in premium subscribers after its U.S. launch in July. The company’s premium service is a paid, advertisement-free version of its streaming music service that lets people share playlists.
The startup has added about 400,000 new paying subscribers since the launch, according to comments made by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek in an interview with CNBC. Ek is presenting at Facebook’s f8 developer conference Thursday, where he is expected to share additional information about Spotify’s stateside penetration into the music streaming market."

Source:  VentureBeat, 21st September 2011

There are 94m 3G subscriptions in China

"Of the combined total of 93.8 mln 3G subs, China Mobile holds 43%, China Unicom 29.7%, and China Telecom 27.2%."
Source:  Data from Marbridge Consulting, 20th September 2011
Follow the link for lots more mobile data

Tablet sales rose 80% Y-o-Y in Q2 2011

"The number of mobile broadband-enabled tablets (e.g., Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, BlackBerry PlayBook, HP TouchPad, etc.) sold in the second quarter versus the first quarter jumped 80%, with 14 million tablets sold worldwide in 2Q11
A total of US$31.4 billion was spent on smartphones in 2Q11, down 1.4% from the previous quarter despite unit shipments being up about 2%, indicating unit-price erosion impeded revenue growth
Infonetics expects global smartphone revenue to grow 31% in 2011 over 2010, to $117 billion
Apple's stronger volumes and higher ARPU helped increase its global smartphone revenue share every quarter thus far in 2011, now at 36% of the smartphone market in 2Q11
HTC and Samsung leapfrogged into 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, in the global smartphone market in 2Q11, ahead of RIM and Nokia"
Source:  Estimates from Infonetics Research, reported in a press release, 19th September 2011

Data on American text message usage

"Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day—that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month—and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).
Overall, the survey found that both text messaging and phone calling on cell phones have leveled off for the adult population as a whole. Text messaging users send or receive an average of 41.5 messages on a typical day, with the median user sending or receiving 10 texts daily – both figures are largely unchanged from what we reported in 2010. Similarly, cell owners make or receive an average of 12 calls on their cells per day, which is unchanged from 2010"
Source:  Data from Pew Internet and American Life Project 'Americans and Text Messaging', 19th September 2011
Full report from Pew here

Things Apple is Worth More Than

A useful tumblr blog - for example:
"The Star Wars, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Stephen King and Twilight Franchise Combined
Star Wars: 18 Billion
Star Trek: 4 Billion
Harry Potter: 15 Billion
Stephen King: 10 Billion
Twilight: 2 Billion
Total: 49 Billion.
Wow.
Sourced by search, all numbers are approximate and it’s still not even close."
Here

Instagram has 9m users after only 11 months

"Instagram cofounder Kevin Systrom took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt this morning. The photo sharing app was a pivot from a bigger idea, Burbn, and launched in the App Store last October.
The app has 9 million users -- it's almost as big as Foursquare in half the time. "

Source:  Business Insider, 13th September 2011

Super Girl, the Chinese version of Pop Idol, acheived an audience of 400m in 2005

"Super Girl has attracted regulatory scrutiny before. The show was first launched in 2004 and hit its 400m viewership peak in the final episode of the 2005 season, but was suspended once before and repeatedly criticised. Aside from unease about creating stars with the help of audience votes, officials criticised it as profane and “unhealthy”."

Source:  Financial Times, 19th September 2011

Social networks and blogs account for nearly a quarter of the time Americans spend online

"Highlights of Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report”
Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet
At over 53 billion total minutes during May 2011, Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other website
Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago
Nearly 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone
Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet
70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12 percent more likely than the average adult Internet user
Across a sample of 10 global markets, social networks and blogs are the top online destination in each country, accounting for the majority of time spent online and reaching at least 60 percent of active Internet users"
Source:  Data from Nielsen's 'State of the Media:  The Social Media Report', quoted on NielsenWire, 11th Septeber 2011
See the full report here

The top 20 Android apps in the US

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Source:  NielsenWire, 13th September 2011

There are nearly 250,000 NFC-enabled tills in the US

"Google has linked up with Citigroup bank, MasterCard, the mobile carrier Sprint, till maker First Data, and 15 retailers from pharmacies to McDonald's and Macy's department stores. By the end of this year Bedier says many of the largest retailers will be on board, each with thousands of terminals installed, all equipped with so-called near field communications touch pads, which create a wireless connection between two devices close to each other.
The US already has 230,000 readers at tills, and there will be tens of thousands more by Christmas. "We are excited about the amount of usage compared to our original expectations," says Bedier. The triallists use their mobile wallets daily or weekly, for smaller purchases: fast food, prescription drugs, clothes, cosmetics and small small electronic goods."

Source:  The Guardian, 17th September 2011

Flipboard has been downloaded 3.5m times

"He revealed that the app has hit 3.5 million downloads in a year and two months, and has gone from 250 million flips per month to 550 million flips per month in the four months since June. Last time we checked in the app had seen over 2.5 million downloads and with 11.4 million “Flips” per day (which can be likened to pageviews).
The 3.5 million figure is impressive considering Apple has said that it will have sold a total of 35 million iPads in 18 months."

Source:  Flipboard CEO Mike McCue, talking to TechCrunch, 12th September 2011

How email and social media influence purchase decisions

"Kantar Media Compete's study also found that nearly one in three consumers receive more than 20 emails from retailers in a week. And in good news for retailers relying on email, 89 percent of respondents at least occasionally click through to a retail site from an email or visit a retail site immediately after reading an email.
SMS, on the other hand, is still a largely untapped channel for brands to reach shoppers. During a typical week, three out of four consumers (72.2 percent) don't receive any text messages from retailers.
Do social networking sites influence purchase decisions? Yes. In fact, 35 percent of respondents say that Twitter feeds have been influential or extremely influential on purchase decisions, while 23.5 percent say that Facebook has been influential or extremely influential on purchase decisions."
Source:  Data from Kantar Compete, published in a press release, 13th September 2011
Note - All data is for the US only

1m Angry Birds toys and 1m Angry Birds T-shirts are sold each month

"The Angry Birds brand isn’t all about the software, though, by any means. In a Fireside Chat with MG this morning, Rovio’s North American General Manager Andrew Stalbow revealed a few key details surrounding the sales of their real world goods.
Back in December of 2010, Rovio launched a series of Angry Birds plush toys. By March of this year, they had sold just over 2 million of ‘em. Today, they’re selling another million each and every month.
The same goes for their line of T-shirts: every month, they’re selling another million.
This is absolutely huge for them, and should serve as an important stat for app developers to keep in mind moving forward. Rovio is one of the few companies that has found success on iOS then managed to evolve their intellectual property into a proper full-blown license."

Source:  Techcrunch, 12th September 2011

There are more than 10m 3D printed hearing aids in circulation around the world

"The potential for transforming manufacturing business models is most evident in healthcare, an industry that requires mass customization because every person’s body is different. Wohlers estimated the 2009 revenues from 3-D-printed medical devices at $157 million. British manufacturing expert Phil Reeves says more than 10 million 3-D-printed hearing aids are in circulation worldwide (it takes just an hour and a half to fabricate one), along with more than 500,000 3-D-printed dental implants. Medical researchers are using fabricators to turn CT and MRI scans into 3-D models and, at a still very experimental level, to “bioprint” artificial bones, blood vessels, and even kidneys layer by layer from living tissue. Established manufacturers still have the upper hand when it comes to larger quantities or complex assembly. That could change, however, as the devices foster new waves of experimentation."

Source:  A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Fabrication, Strategy + Business, 23rd August 2011

The median size of a TV reviewed on CNet

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The data shows that the median size of a TV reviewed on CNET grew from 34 inches in 2002 to 46 inches in 2009.
Source:  Blog post on Flowing Data, 29th September 2009
Note - this is more 'interesting' than 'scientific', but it seems to illustrate that the TVs in people's homes are getting bigger, which rings true for me.
From the blog post:
"The numbers come from the past 745 dated CNet television reviews.  While reviews aren't a direct indicator of what televisions people buy, they do show what's on the market"

80% of Americans earning more than $250,000 pa are social media users

"The reasons for going online are, as most other industries already know, compelling. Eighty percent of people with an income of over $250,000 are social media users according to Unity Marketing research, and 50 percent have used social media to learn more about a brand or see new products. Data from small business consulting firm Lex Consulting shows that those earning more than $150,000 are the only people spending more than they did before the recession. And a 2011 Digitas study notes over the next decade digitally entrenched millennials will become the next major luxury buyers—and should therefore be targeted now."
Source:  AdWeek, 12th September 2011
Note - While they don't explicitly say it, I'm assuming that the research quoted is for the US only

The iPad has an estimated 73% share of the UK tablet market

"A total of 3.62 million people own tablet computers in the UK, with Apple having a 73% market share, according to new research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
The number of owners is set to grow rapidly, although Apple's share may be eroded, with only half of potential tablet owners saying that they will buy an iPad in the next year, says the company. Kantar gathers its data from a panel of direct consumer interviews in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, US and Australia.
The second most-popular tablet brand among owners is the Samsung Galaxy. Among would-be buyers, 6% plan to buy one. However, after that the brand split is "a long tail" with some brands having only one or two percentage point shares.
The market is still up for grabs, with 28% of those who intend to buy a tablet over the next year unsure about which brand to buy, the research found."

Source:  Data from Kantar, reported by The Guardian, 12th September 2011

The Sims Social has over 36m monthly active players on Facebook

"Game publishing company Electronic Arts‘ newest social game, The Sims Social, has passed social gaming supergiant Zynga’s Farmville and now has 36 million monthly active users just under a month after its launch, according to AppData.
The Sims Social has held the top spot as the fastest growing application on Facebook for more than a week. The game picked up more than 1.7 million new users on Sunday, and picked up a total of about 8.3 million new users last week. It’s seen enough growth to knock off FarmVille and become the fourth most popular social game on Facebook, behind Zynga’s own Empires & Allies, Cityville and Texas HoldEm Poker. Zynga’s Farmville now has 35.7 million monthly active users."
Source:  Data from AppData, reported by VentureBeat, 12th September 2011

Facebook posts made though 3rd party APIs like Hootsuite attract less than 1/4 the engagement of posts made directly

"It’s been a general consensus in the EdgeRank community that 3rd party APIs (this simple list provides examples of potential 3rd Party APIs) are punished in Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm. We ran a study across our entire data set to provide evidence that our hypothesis is true. The result of our study was quite eye opening. Using a 3rd party API to update your Facebook Page decreases your likelihood of engagement per fan (on average) by about 80%.
We ran our analysis on 1,000,000+ Updates on 50,000+ Pages that influence over 1,000,000,000+ Fans. We took each individual post and analyzed the engagement (comment & likes) along with how many fans the Page had at the moment of updating. We then analyzed Facebook vs The Top 10 Other APIs (based on our sample size). We did a weighted average for the 3rd Party APIs, which resulted in 0.22% engagement. The result is a percentage that represents engagement per fan per post (on weighted average, of our Top 10 3rd Party API). Our sample size ranged per API, although we cut it off at the Top 10 APIs outside of Facebook."

Source:  Data from EdgeRank Checker, reported on their blog, 6th September 2011

Nearly 2/3 of phones bought in Germany are smartphones

"With more than one mobile phone per person in Germany, it is a strong mobile market, but the potential for growth exists. German mobile consumers are connected and getting smarter. Nearly two out of every three (63%) mobile purchases in Germany are smartphones. Today, 30 percent of Germans own a smartphone, compared with 45 percent in the U.K., 40 percent in the U.S., and 36 percent in Russia.
And with 83 percent of German smartphone users contract-billed by a carrier, higher monthly spending patterns follow: users spend an average of 1.5 more than feature phone users on their bills. The advanced user interface is also prompting more sophisticated communication. Over 65 percent of smartphone owners use email and half are active social network users."
Source:  Research by Nielsen, reported in their blog, 8th September 2011

Twitter has 100m monthly & 50m daily active users

"Twitter has 100 million active users logging in at least once a month and 50 million active users every day, CEO Dick Costolo revealed Thursday.
The microblogging service has a total of 200 million registered users, but how many of those are actually regulars has been open to debate for some time. Costolo, in an informal chat with tech reporters he called his “state of the union,” revealed that exactly half of them log in monthly — a number he says is up 82% since the beginning of the year.
The CEO offered a whole raft of statistics to prove that Twitter is healthy and growing like a weed — especially on mobile platforms. Some 55 million users log on to Twitter from their phone or tablet every month. Web-based users are on the rise, too: Twitter.com now sees 400 million visitors a month, up from 250 million at the beginning of the year, Costolo says.
Less than 40% of users have not tweeted in the last month, according to the CEO, preferring to simply follow the timelines of others. “We’re excited about that number,” Costolo says. “That’s super healthy.”"
Source:  Mashable, 8th September 2011

28% of American adults use mobile or social location-based services, including mobile maps

"More than a quarter (28%) of all American adults use mobile or social location-based services of some kind. This includes anyone who takes part in one or more of the following activities:
28% of cell owners use phones to get directions or recommendations based on their current location—that works out to 23% of all adults.
A much smaller number (5% of cell owners, equaling 4% of all adults) use their phones to check in to locations using geosocial services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. Smartphone owners are especially likely to use these services on their phones.
9% of internet users set up social media services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn so that their location is automatically included in their posts on those services. That works out to 7% of all adults."
Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 6th September 2011

68% of companies monitor employee internet activity

"Clearswift, the software security company, today unveiled the latest edition of its annual research report, WorkLifeWeb 2011, outlining global attitudes towards social media and personal technology in today’s workplace. This year’s research has highlighted a new phase in the social media journey as businesses across the globe clamp down following recent high profile data breaches: 68% of companies now monitor employee internet activity and 56% block access to some sites.
An overwhelming sense of caution is emanating from businesses when it comes to social media. In Clearswift’s 2010 study just 9% of companies globally engaged in blocking employee access to social media sites, yet in the latest research this figure has risen to 19%. Blocking is most evident in Germany (23%) and Australia (21%). The only exception is the United States, with 30% of companies actively encouraging their employees to use social media tools.
In addition, 87% of companies in the survey are so concerned about security and data loss that it’s preventing technology adoption; this fear is most evident in Japan (92%). However, managers still see social media as being critical to future success, particularly in relation to communication, with 54% citing web collaboration as a pivotal tool, and one in four companies planning to invest more in social media this year than last. The push for investment is strongest in the United States, where 44% expect to invest, and the UK, where 31% expect to do so. It is weakest in Germany (18%) and Japan (13%)."
Source:  Data from Clearswift, reported in a press release, 6th September 2011

Burberry is spending 60% of its marketing budget on digital channels

"Burberry has switched the focus of its marketing away from glossy print advertising in favour of digital investment.
The luxury fashion brand is promoting the launch of its fragrance Burberry Body through Facebook, instead of glossy fashion magazines for the first time, according to the Financial Times.
The brand now spends 60% of its marketing budget on digital channels such as Facebook, which is more than three times the average investment.
The Facebook promotion offers fans of the brand a free sample of the scent, which will be sent to their home address, in return for allowing the brand’s application access to their data on Facebook."

Source:  Marketing Week, 1st September 2011

The 'half life' of a popular link shared on Twitter is 3 hours

"We can evaluate the persistence of the link by calculating what we’re calling the half life: the amount of time at which this link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak. For this link the half life was 70 minutes, which captures all the clicks between the grey lines on the graph above.
Let’s look at a second link - East Coast earthquake: 5.8 magnitude epicenter hits Virginia - , this one first shared by the Washington Post on Twitter.
Rate of clicks per minute on “East Coast earthquake: 5.8 magnitude epicenter hits Virginia”
While the exact details of the traffic are a little different, and the scale of the traffic to this link is much larger, we see essentially the same pattern: a fast rise, and a more relaxed drop-off. Noticeably though this link a half life of only 5 minutes: after 5 minutes this link had seen half of the clicks it would ever see.
This link is associated with a very timely event (an earthquake on the US East Coast) as opposed to the previous link (pictures of otters and kittens are clearly interesting all the time). We think that this difference in content drives the difference in dynamics of these two links. However, one alternative theory that comes up again and again is that the dynamics of the link traffic depend on where the link is posted: do links posted on facebook last longer than they do on twitter?
So we looked at the half life of 1,000 popular bitly links and the results were surprisingly similar. The mean half life of a link on twitter is 2.8 hours, on facebook it’s 3.2 hours and via ‘direct’ sources (like email or IM clients) it’s 3.4 hours. So you can expect, on average, an extra 24 minutes of attention if you post on facebook than if you post on twitter."

Source:  Analysis by Bitly, reported on their blog, 6th September 2011

More than 40% of TV viewers use social media while they watch TV at least once a week

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Source:  Research by Ericsson, reported in a press release, 2nd September 2011
Full presentation here
Methodology:  "Data was collected in Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, the UK, the US and South Korea. In all, 22 qualitative and 13,000 quantitative interviews were conducted representing almost 400 million consumers."

There are 485m internet users in China

"The number of Internet surfers in China increased to an estimated 485 million as of the end of June 2011, according to the latest semiannual survey conducted by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).
The number of Internet surfers rose 6.1% from half year ago and was equivalent to a user density or penetration rate (divided by population) of 36.2%, CNNIC indicated. Of the Internet surfers, 389.77 million used broadband fixed-line access modes (xDSL, cable modem, fiber-optic and dedicated line) at home and 317.68 million used handsets for mobile access. The average time spent using the Internet was 18.7 hours."

Source:  Data from the CNNIC, reported by DigiTimes, 12th August 2011

Only 36% of British consumers know what QR codes are

"QR codes may be popular among marketers, but the vast majority of consumers (64%) don't know what they are for.
According to a survey of 794 online respondents by Simpson Carpenter, just 36% of consumers know what QR codes are for, while 11% have actually used them?
Does this lack of awareness mean that QR codes are not such a valuable tool, or do they target a smaller but potentially more valuable audience?"

Source:  Data from Simpson Carpenter, reported in Econsultancy, 5th September 2011

40% of American mobile users have a smartphone

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Source:  Nielsen, in their blog, 1st September 2011

There are more than 5m online sellers in China

"Zhang Qiaoli uses her spare bedroom for storing her stock of ladies' fashion-wear and photo shoots.
She is one of more than five million small online stores operating across China, some from small apartments or even college dormitories.
She buys dresses and accessories wholesale; using the website Taobao, she sells them on as the Kitty Lover range, at prices under $10.
Taobao is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba and the brainchild of founder Jack Ma. It is a free-to-use online marketplace with some 800 million product lines - from food to clothes to technology.
It boasts 50 million unique visitors a day and is the top destination for three quarters of the country's online shoppers.
Running Kitty Lover allows Ms Zhang to work from home and take care of her baby son - though it's more than a hobby.
"Of course it's quite competitive, because there are hundreds of new stores opening every day on Taobao," says Ms Zhang."

Source:  BBC News, 30th August 2011

Data on apps & app stores

Monetization And Analytics In Appstores

View more presentations from Gert Jan Spriensma

2.31bn RFID tags were sold in 2010

"In retail, RFID is seeing rapid growth for apparel tagging. RFID in the form of tickets used for transit will demand 450 million tags in 2011. The tagging of animals (such as pigs, sheep and pets) is now substantial as it becomes a legal requirement in many more territories, with 243 million tags being used for this sector in 2011. This is happening in regions such as China and Australasia. In total, 2.88 billion tags will be sold in 2011 versus 2.31 billion in 2010. Most of that growth is from passive UHF RFID labels."

Source:  IDTechEx, August 2011

45% of British internet users sometimes connect through mobile

"Almost half of UK internet users are going online via mobile phone data connections, according to the Office for National Statistics.
45% of people surveyed said they made use of the net while out and about, compared with 31% in 2010.
The most rapid growth was among younger people, where 71% of internet-connected 16 to 24-year-olds used mobiles.
Domestic internet use also rose. According to the ONS, 77% of households now have access to a net connection.
That figure was up 4% from the previous year, representing the slowest rate of growth since the ONS survey began in 2006.
Among the 23% of the population who remain offline, half said they "didn't need the internet.""
Source:  Data from the Office of National Statistics, reported by BBC News, 31st August 2011

The estimated breakdown of revenues for UK daily deal sites

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from daily deal aggregator Siftie.co.uk, reported in TechCrunch, 30th August 2011

Facebook has more than 750m active users (full stats)

"People on Facebook
More than 750 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Activity on Facebook
There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

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

Platform
Entrepreneurs and developers from more than 190 countries build with Facebook Platform
People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day
Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites
Since social plugins launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day
More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites

Mobile
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:  Official Facebook Statistics, retrieved 1st September
750m active users announced in July (without full update)
Earlier figures here

Searches for movie trailers went up 50% in 2010

This and other insights are in this film from Google



Source:  Blog post by Google UK, 31st August 2011
Full research paper here