Indian classified ads site Quikr has 17 million monthly visitors

"Quikr is India’s largest horizontal classifieds platform with 17 million unique individuals and small businesses using it across 83 cities every month. These individuals and businesses access Quikr to sell, buy, rent or find products and services in a variety of categories such as electronics, cars, bikes, real estate, services, jobs, education and entertainment. Existing investors include Nokia Growth Partners and Omidyar Network, apart from those mentioned above."

Source:  Press release from Quikr, 22nd May 2012

Star Wars films have taken over $4.4 billion at the box office

"Driven by a tremendously talented creative team, Lucasfilm's legendary Star Wars franchise has flourished for more than 35 years, and offers a virtually limitless universe of characters and stories to drive continued feature film releases and franchise growth over the long term. Star Wars resonates with consumers around the world and creates extensive opportunities for Disney to deliver the content across its diverse portfolio of businesses including movies, television, consumer products, games and theme parks. Star Wars feature films have earned a total of $4.4 billion in global box to date, and continued global demand has made Star Wars one of the world's top product brands, and Lucasfilm a leading product licensor in the United States in 2011. The franchise provides a sustainable source of high quality, branded content with global appeal and is well suited for new business models including digital platforms, putting the acquisition in strong alignment with Disney's strategic priorities for continued long-term growth."

Source:  Press release from Disney, 30th October 2012

Nearly a million Nexus 7 tablets are sold each month

"Asus’s sales of Google’s 7-inch tablet, the Nexus 7, are approaching one million units per month, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“At the beginning, it was, for instance, 500K units a month, then maybe 600, 700K. This latest month, it was close to 1 million,” Asustek Chief Financial Officer David Chang told WSJ."

Source:  Mashable, 31st October 2012

Microsoft make an estimated $7.3 billion a year from their mobile patents

"Their smart phone patents score them $15 for every new Android license of which there are 1.3 million every day. That’s $20 million per day ($7.3 billion per year) to Microsoft for doing, well, nothing."

Source:  From Robert Cringely's blog, 28th October 2012

Tablet shipments rose 43% Y-o-Y in Q3 2012

"According to the latest research from our Tablet & Touchscreen Strategies (TTS) service, global tablet shipments reached 25 million units in the third quarter of 2012. Apple iOS slipped to 57 percent global market share, allowing Android to capture a record 41 percent share.
Peter King, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Global tablet shipments reached 24.7 million units in Q3 2012, rising a sluggish 43 percent from 17.2 million in Q3 2011. Demand for tablets slowed due to ongoing economic uncertainty and consumers holding off purchases in anticipation of multiple new models, like the iPad Mini, during the upcoming Q4 holiday season. Apple shipped a disappointing 14.0 million iPads worldwide and captured 57 percent share in the third quarter of 2012, dipping from 64 percent a year ago. Apple’s slowdown allowed the Android community to make gains and Android’s global share of the tablet market now stands at a record 41 percent.”"

Source:  Press release from Strategy Analytics, 25th October 2012

Smartphone market share Q3 2011 - 2012

Chart: Worldwide Smartphone Vendors Market Share, 3Q 2012Description: IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker provides smart phone and feature phone market data in 60 countries and 8 regions by vendor, device type, air interface, operating systems and platforms, and generation. Over 20 additional technical segmentations are provided. The data is provided four times a year and includes historical and forecast trend analysis. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 1-650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com.Further detail about this tracker can be found at:http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=37Tags: Samsung, Apple, Research In Motion, RIM, ZTE, HTC, Mobile Phone, Smartphone, IDC, tracker, Q3 2012, mobile phones, 3Q 2012, market share, galaxy, iPhone Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts

Source:  Press release from IDC, 25th October 2012

Smartphone shipments rose 45% Y-o-Y in Q3 2012

"The worldwide mobile phone market grew 2.4% year over year in the third quarter of 2012 (3Q12), driven by heavyweights Samsung and Apple as Nokia dropped off the Top 5 list of smartphone vendors. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 444.5 million mobile phones in 3Q12 compared to 434.1 million units in the third quarter of 2011.
In the worldwide smartphone market vendors shipped 179.7 million units in 3Q12 compared to 123.7 million units in 3Q11. The 45.3% year-over-year growth was slightly above IDC's forecast of 45.2% for the quarter.
Equally noteworthy was the decline of Nokia, which was replaced by Research In Motion as a Top 5 smartphone player. Nokia's exit from the Top 5, where it had resided since the inception of IDC's Mobile Phone Tracker in 2004, was precipitated by the rise of Samsung and Apple globally and high-growth vendors like Huawei in China, where Nokia was the dominant player as recently as the third quarter of 2011."

Source:  Press release from IDC, 25th October 2012

The three bestselling products on Amazon globally are Kindles

"“Our approach is to work hard to charge less. Sell devices near breakeven and you can pack a lot of sophisticated hardware into a very low price point,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “And our approach is working – the $199 Kindle Fire HD is the #1 bestselling product across Amazon worldwide. Incredibly, this is true even as measured by unit sales. The next two bestselling products worldwide are our Kindle Paperwhite and our $69 Kindle. We’re selling more of each of these devices than the #4 bestselling product, book three of the Fifty Shades of Grey series. And we haven’t even started shipping our best tablet – the $299 Kindle Fire HD 8.9” ships November 20.”"

Source:  Press release from Amazon, 25th October 2012

The proportion of UK kids with home internet access who have a social networking profile, by age

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

Media activity kids in the UK would miss most by age & gender

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

The growth in phone calling & text messaging by kids in the UK

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

Time spent with different media by kids in the UK

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

Brands that use paid media on Facebook typically reach 5 times more people than those that don't

"In a selection of the 100 top brand Pages on Facebook (selected for having large fan bases and high levels of organic reach), those Pages using paid media reached 5.4 times more people on average than those who did not use paid media.
In a case study of 3 major brands: Samsung Mobile, a major financial services company, and a major retailer, using paid media extended their reach by five times over their organic audience in a single week.
In the case of those 3 major brands, paid media was able to extend the reach of a single piece of content by more than 100x.
comScore found that the audience reached via paid media for those 3 brands showed greater shopping and buying behavior than the Internet average."

Source:  Research from Facebook and comScore, published 24th October 2012

Note - Full report here

Next Generation Media Quarterly - October 2012

Lots of key stats & stories from the last 3 months, many of which may be familiar to regular readers of this site.  Enjoy!

Next Generation Media Quarterly October 2012 from Dan Calladine

Zynga has 60 million daily active users

"Daily active users (DAUs) increased from 54 million in the third quarter of 2011 to 60 million in the third quarter of 2012, up 10% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) increased from 227 million in the third quarter of 2011 to 311 million in the third quarter of 2012, up 37% year-over-year.
Monthly unique users (MUUs) increased from 152 million in the third quarter of 2011 to 177 million in the third quarter of 2012, up 17% year-over-year.
Average daily bookings per average DAU (ABPU) decreased from $0.058 in the third quarter of 2011 to $0.047 in the third quarter of 2012, down 19% year-over-year.
Monthly Unique Payers (MUPs) decreased from 4.1 million in the second quarter of 2012 to 3.0 million in the third quarter of 2012, down 28% sequentially, largely driven by Draw Something.
Zynga launched four games during the third quarter of 2012, including two titles on web-based platforms: ChefVille, a social 'ville-style cooking game, and FarmVille 2, Zynga's next-generation game built entirely in 3D and the new chapter in its FarmVille legacy; and two titles on mobile platforms: Gems With Friends, the sixth title in the With Friends franchise, and Montopia, a role-playing game that challenges players to collect monsters through an adventure.
We are seeing positive early results from the recent launches of ChefVille and FarmVille 2. FarmVille 2 already has 60 million monthly active users according to AppData with approximately 500,000 unique payers.
As of September 30, 2012, Zynga held five of the top ten games on Facebook, based on DAUs as reported by AppData, including some of its most established titles, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker, and some of its newest games, Bubble Safari, ChefVille, and FarmVille 2.
In the third quarter of 2012, Zynga continued to expand its platform offering for third-party publishers and introduce players to new gaming genres, launching five partner games on Zynga.com — Sava Transmedia's Rubber Tacos, RocketPlay's Sports Casino, Majesco Entertainment Company's Mini Putt Park, 50 Cubes' Fashion Designer, and Row Sham Bow's Knights of the Rose. The Company also welcomed nine new partners, including Antic Entertainment, Big Bite Games, CrayonPixel, Eruptive Games, JamRT, The Method, Playnery, RocketPlay, and TikGames. Zynga's third-party mobile offerings also took flight with its first game launch — Horn by Phosphor Games."

Source:  3rd Quarter results from Zynga, 24th October 2012

Yelp bought Qype for $50m

"Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects consumers with great local businesses, today announced it has acquired Qype, Europe's largest local reviews site. Qype was acquired to accelerate Yelp's international expansion, bringing more than two million reviews and 15 million unique visitors per month across 13 countries.
[...]
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, Yelp acquired all of Qype's shares, for approximately €18.6 million and 970,000 shares of Yelp's Class A common stock, for a total purchase price of approximately $50 million USD. Qype is headquartered in Germany, with operations also in the United Kingdom. The acquisition will be recorded in Yelp's fourth quarter and 2012 year-end financial statements."

Source:  Press release from Yelp, 24th October 2012

Loyalty and frequency of use of mobile apps

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Source:  Flurry, 22nd October 2012
Note - much more data in the full report

Apple has sold 100 million iPads in two and a half years

"Apple's special press conference on Tuesday morning may have focused on the iPad Mini, but before introducing the new device Apple revealed some interesting statistics about the iPad.
Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage to talk about the iPad, saying, "It seems like each time we get together there's a new number to illustrate the growth of this product."
Cook revealed that in the two and a half years since the iPad was introduced, 100 million of the Apple tablets have been sold, and the iPad now accounts for 91 percent of web traffic on tablets."

Source:  TechRadar, 23rd October 2012

Facebook gets 14% of it's ad revenue from mobile ads

"Facebook Inc grew mobile advertising revenue several times in the third quarter, a faster-than-expected pace that helped drive shares in the world's No. 1 social network nearly 13 percent higher.
Facebook said on Tuesday that it now gets 14 percent of its advertising revenue from mobile ads, helping to reassure investors that the social network is beginning to figure out how to earn money off smartphone and tablet users.
"This certainly dispels the most bearish view, that Facebook couldn't monetize people on phones or tablets," said Colin Sebastian, an analyst with Robert Baird & Co.
"In about a six-month period they've actually started to generate decent revenues form their mobile applications," Sebastian added, though he said Facebook still needs to show that its mobile ads can command the same rates as its traditional ads and that they can deliver results for marketers.
Mobile advertising has been among the key investor concerns hanging over Facebook, helping slash more than $40 billion off its market value since its May IPO. As its users increasingly access the social network with their smartphones, Facebook has struggled to transition its business to mobile devices.
The mobile ads helped reignite Facebook's overall advertising business during the third quarter, following several consecutive quarters of slowing revenue growth that raised questions about Facebook's long-term prospects.
Advertising revenue increased 36 percent to $1.09 billion, up from 28 percent growth in the second quarter. But revenue from its payments and other businesses increased just 13 percent to $176 million.
Mark Zuckerberg, the 28-year-old chief executive who created Facebook in his Harvard dorm room, said mobile was the "most misunderstood aspect" of the company and took issue with the "myth" that Facebook could not earn money on mobile.
"Over the long run we're going to see more monetization per time spent on mobile than on desktop," Zuckerberg said on a conference call with analysts on Tuesday.
The company's shares leapt nearly 13 percent to $21.97 in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
Facebook said it had crossed the 1 billion threshold for monthly active users by September 30, of which 604 million were mobile users, a gain of 61 percent from a year earlier."
Source:  Facebook's earnings, reported by Reuters, 24th October 2012

Ownership of mobile phones by kids in the UK by age

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Source:  Data from Ofcom, 23rd October 2012

Nearly 2/3 of kids 12-15 in the UK have a smartphone, compared to 45% of adults

"Children’s access to the internet is not restricted to PCs or laptops. Those aged 12-15 are more likely than last year to go online using their mobile phones and are more likely to say that this is the device they would miss the most.
Since 2011, there has been a 50% rise in 12-15 year olds owning smartphone devices. Almost two thirds (62%) of this age group now has one – up from 41% the previous year. This is significantly higher than the UK average for adults of 45%.
Mobile phones are more important to this age group than any other device, even TV. Two fifths (39%) of 12-15 year olds now say they would miss their mobile phone more than any other device, up from just over a quarter (28%) in 2011. Only one in five (20%) said that they would miss TV the most.
Around one in seven (14%) of all children aged 5-15 now use a tablet device at home, a threefold increase since 2011 (5%). Children aged 12-15 are most likely to use a tablet, with 17% saying they do, up from 6% in 2011."

Source:  Data from Ofcom reported in a press release, 23rd October 2012

Note - Lots more data about kids & media use in the full release

Full report here

The ten most followed companies on Instagram

"10. McDonalds — 38,141 Followers
9. General Electric (GE) — 138,329
8. Hermes — 142,722 Followers
7. Audi — 162,386 Followers
6. Tiffany & Co. — 185,156 Followers
5. Gucci — 198,887 Followers
4. Nike — 502,233 Followers
3. Burberry — 546,124 Followers
2. Starbucks Coffee — 862,290 Followers
1. MTV — 983,820 Followers"
Source:  Business Insider, 18th October 2012
Note - According to Webstagram, 28 individuals have more fans than the top company

Nearly 20% of new Facebook fans come from mobile

"Facebook’s mobile user base is growing, but how quickly? New statistics from social analytics firm PageLever show that 19 percent of new Facebook fans in August came from mobile, compared with only 5 percent in May.
PageLever looked at more than 500 Facebook pages with fan bases of 100,000 or greater. The company found that in May, for every 100 new fans, pages got five of those from mobile. In August, that number rose sharply, to 19 per 100.
Facebook, largely because of the grand increase of people accessing the site from their smartphones, has had a renewed focus on mobile. At the TechCrunch Disrupt conference last month in San Francisco, Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in the past, the company had a core mobile team. Now, each department within the social network has mobile duties. The site wants to ensure that users have a quality experience whether they check Facebook on an iPhone, a BlackBerry, or an Android device."

Source:  AllFacebook, 17th October 2012

Only 6% of fans engage with Facebook fan pages in 8 weeks

"Most brands understand the importance of an active, engaged Facebook community, but few brands know how to build one. Fan participation is never strong enough, so brands do what they think makes sense: focus on getting more fans, and posting more content. But today, Napkin Labs is turning common sense on its head. A study conducted by Napkin Labs reveals that when it comes to Facebook, a few very active "Superfans" are way more valuable than the overall quantity of fans.
Fan Engagement: Quantity Does Not Equal Quality
For the study, Napkin labs analyzed fan engagement across 52 Facebook brand pages, with each brand page having between 200,000 and 1,000,000 fans. Of the more than 31.7 million fans who were analyzed over eight weeks, only 6 percent engaged with a brand's Facebook content. While most brands think the best way to boost overall participation is to accumulate more fans, the study proves this is untrue. As a brand page's fan count increased, the amount of engagement from fans didn't necessarily increase along with it. For example, brands pages with over 900,000-1,000,000 fans had 60 percent less engagement than brand pages with 500,000-600,000 fans."
Source:  Press release from Napkin Labs, 18th October 2012
Note - Clearly brands know this, and much of what brands and agencies now do on Facebook is aimed at driving engagement among the fans

There were 6 billion mobile subscriptions at the end of 2011

"The Measuring the Information Society 2012 report also identifies countries which have made the most progress when it comes to ICT development. These dynamic ICT markets are mostly located in the developing world – evidence that many developing countries are catching up quickly in efforts to bridge the so-called ‘digital divide’. Strong performers include Bahrain, Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Saudi Arabia.
In the mobile sector, developing countries now account for the lion’s share of market growth. Mobile-cellular subscriptions registered continuous double-digit growth in developing country markets, for a global total of six billion mobile subscriptions by end 2011. Both China and India each account for around one billion subscriptions.
Mobile broadband continues to be the ICT service displaying the sharpest growth rates. Over the past year, growth in mobile-broadband services continued at 40% globally and 78% in developing countries. There are now twice as many mobile-broadband subscriptions as fixed-broadband subscriptions worldwide."
Source:  Press release from the ITU, 11th October 2012
Note - This does not mean that 6 billion people use mobile phones, as some reported.  Many people have more than one sim card (work phone, personal phone, iPad, etc)

Mobile accounts for 25% of YouTube's views

"YouTube executive Robert Kyncl said at a conference that views from mobile devices now account for a quarter of views on the Google-owned video site.
"We’re experiencing a massive consumer shift," Kyncl said at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit. "Mobile has increased from 6% to 25% in last 18 months across the whole of YouTube."
That figure is up dramatically from the latest official statistics YouTube provides. The company has previously announced that mobile traffic tripled in 2011 and stood at 20 percent of total views."

Source:  Business Insider, 10th October 2012

US digital ad spend hit $17 billion in H1 2012

"In the first half of 2012, internet advertising revenues climbed to an all-time high of $17 billion, representing a 14 percent increase year-over-year, according to IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US. This performance is compared to the landmark $14.9 billion reported for the first six months of 2011.
Also marking a 14 percent year-over-year increase, second quarter internet ad revenues for this year hit $8.7 billion, up from $7.7 billion during the same time period in 2011.
Highlights of the report include:
Mobile generated significant growth – almost doubling year-over-year – up 95 percent to $1.2 billion in half-year 2012 from $636 million in the comparable 2011 period
Digital video, a component of display-related advertising, saw an increase of 18 percent year-over-year, bringing in a little over $1 billion in revenue in the first two quarters of 2012 compared to nearly $900 million in the first six months of 2011
Search revenues in the first half of the year totaled $8.1 billion, up 19 percent from nearly $6.8 billion during the same timeframe in 2011
Display-related advertising revenues in the first half of the year totaled almost $5.6 billion, accounting for 33 percent of 2012 half-year revenues, up 4 percent from $5.3 billion in the first half of 2011
Retail advertisers constitute the largest category of internet ad spending for the first half of this year, claiming 20 percent of the total revenues at $3.4 billion, while Automotive brought in $2.2 billion for first-half 2012, marking an uptick to 13 percent versus 11 percent of category spend reported for half-year 2011 at $1.7 billion"
Source:  Press release from the IAB, 11th October 2012

Amazon makes no profit from the sales of Kindle Fire tablets

"Amazon has confirmed it will not make a profit from sales of its latest Kindle tablet and e-reader devices.
"We sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break-even on the hardware," chief executive Jeff Bezos told the BBC.
It is a stark contrast to the strategy of best-selling tablet-maker Apple.
Mr Bezos made the comments as his firm launched its new Paperwhite e-reader and an associated book lending scheme in the UK, Germany and France."

Source:  BBC News, 11th October 2012

Top countries for Twitter users

Caution - see note 1 below
The top 10 counties by percent of total Twitter users.  I.e. 50% of Twitter users are in the US.

COUNTRY    % OF USERS
United States    50.99
United Kingdom    17.09
Australia            4.09
Brazil            3.44
Canada            2.92
India                    2.87
France            1.76
Indonesia            1.43
Iran                    0.88
Ireland            0.85
Source:  Beevolve, October 2012
Note 1 - These are unofficial stats.  If you take Twitter's official statment that there are approx 140m active accounts, then there are approximately 70m Twitter users in the US, and over 20m in the UK.  Hmmm - UK figure looks too high (Population is 60m)
Note 2 - Lots of other stats in the full article

People who download music from Peer-to-Peer sites buy 30% more music than people who do not

"US P2P users have larger collections than non-P2P users (roughly 37% more).  And predictably, most of the difference comes from higher levels of ‘downloading for free’ and ‘copying from friends/family.’
But some of it also comes from significantly higher legal purchases of digital music than  their non-P2P using peers–around 30% higher among US P2P users.  Our data is quite clear on this point and lines up with numerous other studies:  The biggest music pirates are also the biggest spenders on recorded music.
Our German results appear to confirm this finding–in fact, extravagantly so.  German P2P users buy nearly 3 times as much digital music as their non-P2P using peers.  We qualify this because the German results are based on too small a sample to be statistically reliable: only 4% of respondents (39 people) reported using P2P networks.  Yet the results are consistent with our wider findings.  German P2P use is mostly the province of digital music aficionados who download in large quantities and who also buy in much larger quantities than their non-P2P peers."

Source:  American Assembly, 15th October 2012

Note - lots of other interesting stats in the report, inc the fact that the median person aged 30-49 has only 30 albums worth of digital music 

Felix Baumgartner's skydive was seen live on YouTube by 8 million people

"Red Bull Stratos, the event behind Felix Baumgartner's skydive from the edge of space in a record breaking stunt, reached eight million concurrent views on YouTube, marking the highest-ever concurrent viewing figure on the Google-owned site.
Baumgartner, the Austrian daredevil, yesterday (14 October) became the first skydiver to reach the speed of sound, when he jumped out of a balloon 24 miles above New Mexico, reaching a top speed of 833.9 miles per hour.
The stunt was sponsored by Red Bull and attracted eight million concurrent views on YouTube, the highest-ever concurrent viewing figures on the Google-owned site's history.
Red Bull described the stunt as the biggest piece of activity it has undertaken this year. It has been heavily promoting the event through its own sites as well as social media channels and PR activity.
According to a Twitter spokeswoman, there has been approximately 3.1m tweets sent, relating to the event."
Source:  Marketing Magazine, 15th October 2012

More than one billion smartphones are in use around the world

"According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, the number of smartphones in use worldwide surpassed the 1 billion-unit mark for the first time ever in the third quarter of 2012. It has taken 16 years for the smartphone industry to reach this historic milestone.
Scott Bicheno, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, "The world's first modern smartphone, the Nokia Communicator, was introduced in 1996. Nokia remained a dominant force in smartphones for over a decade until the arrival of Apple's iconic iPhone in 2007. The iPhone revolutionized smartphone design and it catalyzed industry growth. By the third quarter of 2011, we estimate there were 708 million smartphones in use worldwide. After a further year of soaring demand, the number of smartphones in use worldwide reached 1.038 billion units during the third quarter of 2012."
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said, "We estimate 1 in 7 of the world's population owned a smartphone in the third quarter of 2012. Smartphone penetration is still relatively low. Most of the world does not yet own a smartphone and there remains huge scope for future growth, particularly in emerging markets such as China, India and Africa. The first billion smartphones in use worldwide took 16 years to reach, but we forecast the next billion to be achieved in less than three years, by 2015.""

Source:  Press release from Strategy Analytics, 17th October 2012

Mobile accounts for 12% of global internet traffic

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Source:  Data from Statcounter, reported in State of the Internet, Business Insider, 1st October 2012
Read the full presentation - it's brilliant!

Barclays' Pingit app has been downloaded 1.2 million times

"The app, which is also available to customers who do not bank at Barclays, allows people to send and receive money via their mobiles using just mobile phone numbers. Users can also send money almost instantly to companies or charities and internationally, for free.
It has attracted 1.2 million downloads since its launch in February. A large amount of these are non-customers, who have then gone on to take up other banking products from the company, Barclays’ customer experience design director Darren Foulds claims."

Source:  Marketing Week, 28th September 2012

More than a million businesses use the Foursquare merchant platform

"Community: Over 25 million people worldwide
Over 2.5 billion check-ins, with millions more every day
Businesses: Over a million using the Merchant Platform (more information at foursquare.com/business)
Employees: Over 100 between headquarters in New York, an office in San Francisco, and a lovely outpost in London."

Source:  Data from Foursquare, 'updated September 2012', retrieved 5th October 2012

The ad-supported internet ecosystem accounts for 3.7% of American GDP

"Employment in the ad-supported internet ecosystem doubled over the past four years to 5.1 million, making it one of the most dynamic sectors in the recessionary American economy, according to a study by researchers at the Harvard University Business School, commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The ecosystem contributed $530 billion to the U.S. economy last year, close to double 2007 figures, and accounted for 3.7 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), an uptick from 2.1 percent four years ago.
These key findings are from the 2012 “Economic Value of the Advertising-Supported Internet Ecosystem,” a comprehensive update to a study by the same name released by IAB in 2009, reviewing data from 2007. John Deighton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, who helped lead the previous version, directed the current study, with Leora D. Kornfeld, Research Associate, Harvard Business School, serving as principal investigator. The research was unveiled today at the annual IAB MIXX Conference in New York City to quantify the significant role the ad-supported digital sector plays in the expansion of the broader U.S. business landscape."
Source:  Press release from the IAB, 1st October 2012

Facebook user penetration by region

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Source:  Data from Social Bakers, reported by BBC News, 4th October 2012

There were 10.3 million Tweets discussing the first Presidential debate in October 2012

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Source:  The Atlantic Wire, 4th October 2012
Related - The numbers for the first UK debate in April 2010

Facebook has more than a billion active monthly users (Full Stats)

"This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month.
If you're reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.
Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.
I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too."

Source:  Note from Mark Zuckerberg, posted on Facebook, 4th October 2012

Full stats (from same source, in a downloadable doc)

"One billion – key metrics

Facebook reached 1 billion monthly active users on September 14 at 12.45 PM Pacific time.

Since Facebook launched, we’ve seen:

• Over 1.13 trillion likes since launch in February 2009 

• 140.3 billion friend connections

• 219 billion photos uploaded 

o Data was pulled on 9/10/2012, and represents the total # of photos currently on this site – in other words, it excludes deleted photos.  If we wanted to include all photos ever uploaded, the estimate we have is 265 billion. Photo uploading launched fall 2005.

• 17 billion location-tagged posts, including check-ins

o Includes location-tagged posts as well as check-ins. Data was pulled 9/10/2012, and represents total location-tagged posts & check-ins since launch of the product in August 2010

• 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times - that’s about 210,000 years of music 

o Data was pulled on 9/11/2012, and represents song plays since the launch of music-listening applications in September 2011

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 1B

• The median age of the user is about 22

• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

• Facebook now has 600M mobile users

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 500M users (July 2010)

• The median age of the user at that time was about 23

• Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

• Users signing up at this time now have an average of 305 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week we hit 100M (August 2008)

• The median age of the user at that time was about 26

• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Chile, France, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

• The user signing up at this time now has an average 334 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 50M users (October 2007)

• The median age of the user signing up at this time was about 26

• Top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

• Users signing up at this time now have an average of 321 friends

Characteristics of users joining the week Facebook hit 25M users (January 2006)

• The median age of users signing up at that time was about 19

• The top five countries where people connected from at the time we reached this milestone were Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (NOTE: in alphabetical order)

• Users who signed up at this time now have an average of 598 friends"

Earlier - 901m announced in an SEC filing on 23rd April

The relative effectiveness of Twitter and Facebook for engagement, by sector

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Source:  Social Bakers, 2nd October 2012
Note:  400% for 'Media' on Twitter means that engagement on Twitter for 'Media' brands (newspapers, TV companies, film studios etc) is 400% higher than on Facebook.  91% for 'Airlines' on Facebook means that Airlines see 91% more engagement on Facebook than than do on Twitter. Engagement is defined in the usual way - clicks, replies, retweets, likes, shares comments and so on.

Instagram's American users interact more regularly on mobile than Twitter's users

"Pictures beat words: In August, U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter.
That data comes from comScore, via a new mobile measurement report: It says that throughout August, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users — or DAUs, in Facebook parlance. That tops of Twitter’s 6.9 million DAUs over the same period of time.
What’s more, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, the data claims, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing.
This is the case despite the fact that Twitter had approximately 29 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors in August, while Instagram had just under 22 million (comScore measured usage across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS devices that accessed both sites via native application as well as through the mobile Web browser). This stems from the roughly 110 million smartphone owners who live in the U.S."

Source:  All Things D, 27th September 2012