A world map of the top social networks in 2009 & 2013

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Source:  Data from Alexa, compiled by Vincos.it
Note - While we all have problems with Alexa data, it pretty much tallies with what I've seen from other sources, and illustrates the big shake-out and consolidation that has happened in the past 4 years

Facebook has more than five times as much TV-related chatter as Twitter

"[...] lots of people talk about TV on Facebook, too, right?
Yes, they do. And now we’re getting the first inkling of a TV push from Facebook.
This comes from a new study from social TV tracker Trendrr, which looked at Facebook TV chatter for a week in May, using data that isn’t normally available to the public. Trendrr’s conclusion: Facebook has five times more TV-related activity on its site than Twitter and every other social network combined.
Trendrr’s work comes with some caveats — for starters, it’s only measuring a week — but it’s not surprising. After all, Facebook has a billion users to Twitter’s 200 million, so that 5x ratio makes plenty of intuitive sense.
The more interesting point is that Facebook said it’s going to start talking about all those TV talkers, sharers and thumbs-uppers.
“The reality is that a conversation is taking place around TV on Facebook at unprecedented scale,” said Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s director of global media partnerships. “It’s important that we help networks and advertisers understand the full level of engagement people have with TV content on Facebook. We’re just getting started and are committed to providing more insight into how people are talking — and how much they’re talking — about TV shows on our platform.”
Trendrr said that Facebook TV talkers also behave differently than those on Twitter (the other “social TV” services have very little traffic to speak of).
For instance, there is more chatter about comedies, Spanish-language programming and dramas on Facebook, Trendrr said."
Source:  AllThingsD, 23rd July 2013

The BBC News website received mobile smartphone traffic than desktop traffic twice in July 2013

"BBC News received more traffic from mobile phones than from desktop computers on two weekend days this month.
The stats, which exclude traffic from tablets, show that on Sunday 14 July and on Saturday 20 July the majority of global hits to BBC News came from smartphones.
Traffic on the first day the site reached the milestone was largely driven by a story on the death of Glee actor Cory Monteith, according to Nathalie Malinarich, who is overseeing mobile editorially at BBC News.
On a typical day mobile phones (excluding tablets) contribute 42 per cent of the total traffic to BBC News, Malinarich told Journalism.co.uk.
The figures for mobile include people accessing the BBC News responsive website, those looking at the desktop site on a smartphone, and those using the BBC News apps.
Two other milestones
The royal baby story provided two other milestones for BBC News. Monday (22 July), the day of the birth, was a record day for mobile and tablet traffic, with the site being accessed from 9.2 million devices globally. The previous record was 7.8 million, which was following the Boston bombings.
Reports on the US election and Hurricane Sandy resulted in previous records for mobile for BBC News.
BBC News received record global traffic on the day of the royal birth, with 19.4 million unique browsers globally. It was the second biggest day in its history for UK traffic, just behind the response to its coverage of the 2011 riots."

Source:  Journalism.co.uk, 25th July 2013

More than 10% of Starbucks' US transactions are made with a phone

"Once a coffee shop, now a café, Starbucks is also catching the attention of younger generations with its technology capabilities. Starbucks’s Chief Digital Officer, Adam Brotman, was the first to speak on the conference call following Mr. Schultz, indicating his increasingly important role at the global company.
Mr. Brotman said Starbucks passed the 4-million-follower mark on Twitter earlier this month, and now more than 10% of its transactions in the U.S. are made with a phone. Starbucks’s loyalty cards in North America booked 30% year-over-year growth in dollars loaded. And Starbucks is installing wireless charging mats in more stores, its next big step in technological advancement."

Source:  WSJ, 26th July 2013

1/3 of US adult shoppers now regularly 'showroom'

"The biggest beneficiary of these searches is Amazon – twice as much so as Google — according to a study released by Pargo, a Lewisville, Texas-based commerce and rewards company. The company surveyed 1,043 US smartphone owners (53 percent female, 47 percent male) in June 2013 and summed up the results in Dynamic Pricing in Smartphone World. Here are some of the highlights (and points illustrated with the help of graphics from the study):
58% of adult smartphone users and 1/3 of all US adult shoppers now regularly “showroom.”
A price difference of just $5 can sway shoppers from in-store to Amazon purchasing
comparison shopping on a smartphone while in-store is up 400% over last year
Not only is Amazon #1, but it is used for showrooming 2x more than the next option, Google.
For 46%, price is king when it comes to comparison shopping on smartphones while in-store
59% of households with $200,000+ annual incomes buy on their phones weekly while in-store.
The higher the income, the greater the propensity to switch to Amazon to save $5 on a $50 item.
A 5% discount on a $500+ item that is not an exact match, but is similar, can switch half of all shoppers to Amazon."
Source:  GigaOM, 24th July 2013

70m Android tablets have been activated

"Today at a press event hosted by Android and Chrome chief Sundar Pichai, Google revealed that there have been 70 million Android tablet activations to date. Google also detailed that, in the first half of 2013, so far one in every two tablets sold globally is based on Android.
Pichai also shared, perhaps unimpressively given its generally perceived popularity in comparison to other Android tablets, that the Nexus 7 “makes up at least 10% of all Android tablets sold.” He went to say that the Nexus 7 was “the single highest selling tablet in all of Japan during the holiday season.”"
Source:  The Next Web, 24th July 2013

Related - Apple announced 67m iPad sold in April 2012

There are more than one billion podcast subscriptions through iTunes

"Apple on Monday announced that the iTunes Store eclipsed 1 billion podcast subscriptions. That’s a whole lot of talking. A special promotion appeared in the iTunes Podcasts directory to commemorate the big number.
Apple says that those billion subscriptions are spread across 250,000 unique podcasts in more than 100 languages, and that more than 8 million episodes have been published in the iTunes Store to date."

Source:  MacWorld, 22nd July 2013

2/3 of tablets sold in Q2 2013 used the Android OS

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Source:  Press release from Strategy Analytics, 27th July 2013

77% of Fortune 500 companies have an active Twitter account

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Source:  University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, reported on Business Grow, 11th July 2013

It took 17 days for the news of Nelson's victory at Trafalgar to reach London

"It took a full seventeen days for news of Nelson’s victory in 1805 at the Battle of Trafalgar to reach London. The news had travelled at 2.7mph.
News of the 1891 Nobi Earthquake in Japan travelled at 246mph, taking one day to reach London.
And in 2008 it took just one minute for news of the Sichuan earthquake to reach – London, travelling at 204,000mph."

Source:  Blog post by Martin Weigel, 15th July 2013

Note - I'm not sure of the original source, but I think it might be Michael Stillwell, A Farewell To Alms: A Brief Economic History Of The World

See also - 'It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million people

A combined Publicis & Omnicom would have revenues of $35bn and 130,000 employees

"Publicis and Omnicom have confirmed that they are to merge to form a partnership of equals to create Publicis Omnicom Group, which will initially be led by John Wren and Maurice Levy as joint CEO’s, with Levy set to step back to a non-executive role following a 30 month period.
The new entity will merge revenue of $22.7bn and €17.7bn (Publicis) and $35.1bn / €26.5bn (Omnicom) and see it overtake WPP as the world’s largest advertising network group, although the overlap is still uncertain, however Wren revealed a figure of $6bn in Omnicom billings from shared clients during the press conference.
The resulting entity will move forward with a combined revenue of around $35.1 billion / €26.5 billion.
Shared clients include Procter & Gamble, L'oreal and McDonalds, while potential conflicts may transpire between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Microsoft and Google and Verizon and AT&T. The deal was unanimously approved by the board of directors with shareholders from each company holding exactly 50 per cent each.
The new entity will employ around 130,000 people and will include agencies such as BBDO, Saatchi & Saatchi, DDB, Leo Burnett, TBWA, Razorfish, Publicis Worldwide, Fleishman-Hillard, DigitasLBi, Ketchum, StarcomMediaVest, OMD, BBH, Interbrand, MSLGROUP, RAPP, Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG), Proximity, Rosetta, CDM, ZenithOptimedia and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, with no mergers between these having yet been announced."

Source:  The Drum, 28th July 2013

Facebook has more daily active users on mobile than desktop

"CEO Mark Zuckerberg observed that the network now has more daily active users on mobile than on desktop. "Soon we'll have more revenue on mobile than on desktop as well," he said.
Considering the global patterns of Facebook usage, demonstrating mobile ad revenue acceleration is critical for the company. There were 819 million mobile monthly active users on Facebook as of June 30, up 51% over the previous year. That's 71% of the total who access the social network at least once a month.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg observed that the network now has more daily active users on mobile than on desktop. "Soon we'll have more revenue on mobile than on desktop as well," he said."

Source:  AdAge, 24th July 2013

Facebook has 819 million monthly mobile users, and makes 41% of its ad revenue from mobile

"Second Quarter 2013 Operational Highlights
Daily active users (DAUs) were 699 million on average for June 2013, an increase of 27% year-over-year.
Monthly active users (MAUs) were 1.15 billion as of June 30, 2013, an increase of 21% year-over-year.
Mobile MAUs were 819 million as of June 30, 2013, an increase of 51% year-over-year.  Mobile DAUs were 469 million on average for June 2013.
Recent Business Highlights
Surpassed 1 million active advertisers on Facebook, driven by significant growth in local businesses.
Introduced video for Instagram and saw 5 million videos uploaded in the first 24 hours.
Facebook for Every Phone has now passed 100 million monthly active users.  In just two years, Facebook for Every Phone has successfully put Facebook into the hands of millions of people around the world with limited access to the Internet, giving them the power to connect and share.
Launched products including Verified Pages, hashtags and embedded posts to help people on Facebook connect with their friends about what's taking place all over the world.
Announced that there have now been over 100,000 apps built on Parse, a cloud-based platform that provides scalable cross-platform services and tools for developers to enable them to build apps that span mobile platforms and devices.
Facebook's data center in Lulea, Sweden, began serving live user traffic around the world using Facebook's Open Compute Project designs and renewable energy.
Second Quarter 2013 Financial Highlights
Revenue — Revenue for the second quarter of 2013 totaled $1.81 billion, an increase of 53%, compared with $1.18 billion in the second quarter of 2012.
Revenue from advertising was $1.60 billion, representing 88% of total revenue and a 61% increase from the same quarter last year.
Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 41% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2013.
Payments and other fees revenue was $214 million for the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 11% from the same quarter last year."

Source:  Facebook Investor Relations, 24th July 2013
Previous results:  751m monthly mobile users, 30% of revenue from mobile

The ten most popular users on Keek

1 - Kendall Jenner
Views: 70,152,733
Followers: 1,913,534
Subscribers: 465,414
Keeks: 204

2 - ariana grande
Views: 29,365,613
Followers: 1,448,312
Subscribers: 441,621
Keeks: 235

3 Kylie Jenner
Views: 109,566,866
Followers: 1,725,802
Subscribers: 401,999
Keeks: 544

4 - Kim Kardashian
Views: 35,825,428
Followers: 1,781,029
Subscribers: 374,646
Keeks: 64

5 - silver000
Views: 20,008,747
Followers: 566,013
Subscribers: 279,292
Keeks: 31

6 - Khloe Kardashian
Views: 27,249,710
Followers: 1,284,861
Subscribers: 252,655
Keeks: 85

7 - kourtney kardash
Views: 15,523,424
Followers: 1,221,767
Subscribers: 230,228
Keeks: 43

8 - Austin Mahone
Views: 13,905,235
Followers: 489,212
Subscribers: 215,361
Keeks: 264

9 - badr_alzidan
Views: 31,679,862
Followers: 591,353
Subscribers: 201,980
Keeks: 43

10 - Jai_Brooks
Views: 13,215,643
Followers: 612,271
Subscribers: 196,772
Keeks: 121

Source:  Keek, retrieved 24th July 2013

Note - it's interesting to see all of the Kardashian & Jenner girls here, but also two Arabic celebrities (Silver000 and Badr Alzidan), plus a YouTube music star (Austin Mahone) and one of the Janoskians

Also - 5 of the 10 most popular people on Instagram are Kardashians

Video site Keek has 45 million users

"Keek, the mobile social video network, officially announced today that its community has surpassed 45 million users, making it the largest in the world with over 24 million new users joining in the last 4 months.
Keek attributes its recent growth surge to speed, ease of use and service reliability. Building on a strong presence in the US, UK and the Middle East, the platform continues to spread quickly through Europe, Africa and Latin America, with rapid growth also occurring in Malaysia, Singapore and other Asian regions.
"From the beginning, our entire product focus has been on communication and social interaction versus entertainment," says Isaac Raichyk, Founder and CEO of Keek. "You don't need to be creatively inclined to have fun with the service. We are committed to building an effective communications platform that anyone can use."
Keeks are raw and spontaneous; users aren't required to use filters, stop motion or editing in order to produce content. The end result is a more immediate, authentic and personal experience.
In the last 4 months, Keek has been the #1 social networking app in 45 countries with more than 667 million visits. During this time the platform served over 12 billion pageviews, users posted more than 18 million keeks and over 2.2 billion videos were watched."

Source:  Press release from Keek, 6th June 2013

Apple sold 31.2m Phones & 14.6m iPads in Q3 2013

"The Company sold 31.2 million iPhones, a record for the June quarter, compared to 26 million in the year-ago quarter. Apple also sold 14.6 million iPads during the quarter, compared to 17 million in the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 3.8 million Macs, compared to 4 million in the year-ago quarter."
Source:  Press release from Apple, 23rd July 2013
Q2 Results - 37.4m iPhones, 19.5m iPads, and 4m Macs

Plus:

Cumulative iPod sales: 379m. Cumulative iPhone sales: 387.5m
— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 24, 2013

Plus:

Apple cyclicality pic.twitter.com/jRXh25wlM3
— Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans) July 24, 2013

Google services account for nearly 25% of all internet traffic

"The diversified range of new products being built and provided by Google now make the company accountable for nearly 25 percent of all Internet traffic, up from a mere 6 percent just three years ago, according to a new study.
Based on measurements of end device and audience share, that makes the Internet company's reach larger than Facebook, Netflix and Twitter combined, according to Deepfield, a big data and Internet infrastructure research firm.
Some 60 percent of all Internet end devices exchange traffic with Google servers during the course of an average day, said Deepfield, which conducted the ongoing study. The analysis includes computers and mobile devices as well as hundreds of varieties of game consoles, home media appliances and other embedded devices like Apple TV, Roku, Xbox 360 and mobile apps.
Google buys speech recognition patents Symantec: Google Glass still vulnerable to Wi-Fi attack Chrome 28 on iOS bolsters browser's ties to Google app ecosystem.
The data focus primarily on North America and cover roughly one-fifth of the U.S. consumer Internet, making it "the largest ongoing study of its kind," the group said in a blog post.
Deepfield co-founder Craig Labovitz attributed the meteoric rise in traffic patterns to server growth at Google as well as the success of a range of products such as YouTube, which the company bought for US$1.65 billion in 2006, Android-based mobile devices and various Google cloud services like Google Drive."

Source:  Computer World UK, 23rd July 2013

Note - As it says, the data focusses primarily on the US

There are 591m internet users in China, including 464m mobile internet users

"The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued its 32nd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China today, in which it found a total of 591 mln internet users in China as of the end of June 2013, up 26.56 mln from the end of 2012. Internet penetration reached 44.1% at the end of June 2013, up 2.0 percentage points from the end of 2012.

China had 464 mln mobile internet users at the end of June 2013, up 43.79 mln from the end of 2012. The percentage of internet users accessing the internet through a mobile handset increased to 78.5% during the period, up 4.0 percentage points from the end of 2012. 69.5% of H1 2013 internet users used desktop computers to access the internet, down 1.1 percentage points from the end of 2012. 46.9% of internet users accessed the internet through laptop computers, up 1.0 percentage points from 2012.

Rural residents accounted for 29.5% of China's internet users, or 165 mln people, up by approximately 9.08 mln new users from the end of 2012.

The percentage of internet users between the ages of 20 and 29 was 29.5%. 46.0% of internet users were over the age of 30.

In H1 2013, China's internet users spent an average of 21.7 hours per week online, an increase of 1.2 hours from H2 2012. In H1 2013, internet users spent an average of 11.8 hours per week accessing the internet through a mobile handset. 79.9% of mobile internet users accessed the internet at least once per day via mobile handset, and nearly 60% of mobile internet users accessed the mobile internet multiple times per day."

Source:  CNNIC via Marbridge Daily, 17th July 2013
Earlier - 564m internet users & 420m mobile internet users announced in January 2013

The announcement of the royal baby generated a peak of >25,300 tweets per minute

"The birth of a baby into a royal family has always generated global interest. It’s no different in our 24/7 era.
So when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge announced the birth of their first-born today, it was fitting that the team at Clarence House (@ClarenceHouse) quickly turned to Twitter to send out the word to well-wishers everywhere.
The first confirmation that a royal arrival was imminent came at 7:37 a.m. BST this morning when the couple’s official Twitter account @ClarenceHouse tweeted.
The scale of the global conversation was immediately apparent. Since that announcement, there have been more than two million mentions of the news on Twitter, with well-wishers gathering around hashtags including #RoyalBaby, #RoyalBabyBoy and #RoyalBabyWatch.
The peak in conversation on Twitter about the news came at 8:37 p.m. BST in the minutes following the announcement of the baby’s birth, with more than 25,300 Tweets per minute.
As royal-watchers all over came together to share their excitement, the hashtag #RoyalBaby became the gathering place for messages of congratulations. Since the Duchess was admitted to hospital, that hashtag alone has been used more than 900,000 times on Twitter."

Source:  Twitter blog, 22nd July 2013
Update - It also generated 19m posts, likes and comments on Facebook in the UK alone

Next Generation Media Quarterly - July 2013

See my latest presentation below, looking at key stats and stories in digital media from the last 3 months

Next Generation Media Quarterly July 2013 from Dan Calladine

Approximately 30% of Google searches have some component of location

"ScienceOmega.com journeyed to Bletchley Park to attend the Map Maker launch. Speaking at the event was Jessica Pfund, Maps Product Manager at Google. She began by explaining why geography comprises such an important component of Google’s overall strategy.
"Knowing where things are is very important to our users," she began. "Approximately 30 per cent of Google searches have some component of place: ‘backpacker hostel in Kathmandu’, ‘surfing at Bondi Beach’ – people want to know where these things are. Unsurprisingly, when you look at statistics for mobile devices, this figure rises to about 40 per cent. Oftentimes, people are outside with their phones and they want information about their surroundings. It is really important, therefore, for Google to know where places are.""

Source:  Science Omega, 12th April 2013

Pebble has sold 270,000 smart watches

"The Pebble smartwatch is, thus, the first widely available, affordable smart watch.
It explains why it sold so well from the first day it came out, months ago, and why the Kickstarter project responsible for its existence made over $10 million / €7.65 million.
Speaking of records, Pebble Technology has recently announced that the Kickstarter campaign sold 85,000 of the watches, while pre-orders reserved 190,000 more. And that happened after Pebble had sold out on Best Buy."
Source:  Softpedia, 12th July 2013

41% of Vente-Privee's UK customers have bought on a mobile or tablet

"Leading online pan-European Flash Sale pioneer vente-privee.com has found that, of the eight main European markets in which it operates, the UK is by far the most mobile-orientated, with 37% of its UK turnover coming from mobile.
Looking at how it operates in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, UK, Belgium, The Netherlands and Austria, vente-privee.com has found that overall 32% of its sales come from mobile devices. This is up six per cent on the end of 2012. Breaking down the mobile turnover figures by device, 53% of turnover came from tablets, 47% from smartphones.
However, The UK takes a substantial lead ahead of the seven other European countries, with France in second place at 29%. There is also an impressive difference between the UK and vente-privee.com’s other European countries with regards to its percentage of mobile clients: 41%, with Germany second at 35%."
Source:  Internet Retailing, 8th July 2013

Global mobile ad spend reached $8.9 billion in 2012

"IAB Europe, the U.S. IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence, and IHS revealed today their global figures for mobile advertising revenue leaped a massive 82.8% to €6.9bn ($8.9bn) in 2012 from €3.8bn ($5.3bn) in 2011 – highlighting a strong positive growth story taking place across mobile advertising formats.  With growth rates of 88.8% in search, 87.3% in display and 40.2% in messaging at a global level, ad spend in these formats reflects bullish growth in the sector.
Mobile advertising revenue continues to be dominated by the search segment, which represented 52.8% of total global mobile advertising revenue, or €3.6bn EURO/$4.7 USD in 2012, (€1.9bn/$2.5bn in 2011). Display advertising accounted for 38.7% and messaging 8.5%.
The share by region of the global figure of €6.9 billion ($8.9 billion) for 2012 is:
Asia-Pacific: 40.2% (€2,769mn/$3,558mn)
North America: 39.8% (€2,743m/$3,525mn)
Western Europe: 16.9% (€1,167mn/$1,499mn)
Central Europe: 1.3% (€87mn/$112mn)
Middle East & Africa: 1.2% (€85mn/$109mn)
Latin America: 0.6% (€39mn/$50mn)
Growth year-over-year was strong across the board, led by North America, which saw a 111% surge over 2011 figures. Western Europe also saw a major  increase, 91% over the previous year. Other year-over-year upswings include:
Latin America – 71%
Central Europe – 69%
Middle-East and Africa – 68%
Asia-Pacific – 60%"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 9th July 2013
Full presentation

Dropbox users save more than a billion files a day

"To hear the founders tell it, the plan is refreshingly simple and easy to understand for a Silicon Valley striver. The more places Dropbox touches people, the more people will put stuff in their Dropboxes. And the more stuff you put in Dropbox, the more you come to rely on your pervasive data — the more likely you are to pay for more space. Dropbox doesn’t say how many of its 175 million users are paying customers, though the company does say those users add 1 billion files to the service every day. Some of those people will need more space."

Source:  Wired, 9th July 2013

Note - Dropbox themselves describe this as 'syncing files' 

17 million TV viewers in the UK watched Andy Murray win Wimbledon

"Andy Murray's historic Wimbledon tennis triumph was watched by a peak audience of more than 17 million viewers, the biggest since modern ratings records began more than 20 years ago.
The Scot's straight-sets win over Novak Djokovic – making him the first Briton to win the Wimbledon men's title since Fred Perry in 1936 – averaged 12.1 million viewers across the entirety of BBC1's coverage between 1.45pm and 6pm on Sunday, a 72.8% share of the audience.
BBC1's coverage had a five-minute peak of 17.29 million viewers at about 5.30pm. Murray won championship point at about 5.24pm after a final service game that stretched out for 12 nerve-racking minutes.
This is a whisker below the 17.3 million who watched Björn Borg's epic five-set win over John McEnroe in the 1980 final – although it is unclear whether this is a peak or average audience figure.
It was the biggest peak audience of any television programme so far this year, and eclipsed the 11.4 million average and 16.9 million peak for last year's Wimbledon final, in which Murray lost to Roger Federer."
Source:  The Guardian, 8th July 2013

Andy Murray's victory at Wimbledon generated 120,000 Tweets per Minute

"In a Wimbledon championship that played out on Twitter, it was fitting that tennis fans from across the globe came together on the platform to celebrate Murray’s success. At the point of his victory, eight of the UK’s 10 trending topics were Wimbledon-related.
Over the last 12 hours alone, the Wimbledon final has been mentioned more than 3.4 million times on Twitter. The peak in mentions of the match came at its climax at 17.25 BST with 120,000 Tweets per minute. That outstripped the 116,000 Tweets per minute that happened during the Spice Girls’ performance at last summer’s Olympics, a moment that saw the largest spike in Tweets per minute of the London 2012 Games.
And one of the Spice Girls, Victoria Beckham (@VictoriaBeckham) was cheering Murray on from Centre Court - even sharing a pic of her vantage point with her own 6 million Twitter followers."
Source:  Twitter UK blog, 7th July 2013

There are 100,000 apps available on Windows 8

"While Microsoft didn't quite hit 100,000 in time for its Build developers conference last week, the software giant is announcing its latest milestone for Windows 8 today. The Windows Store has just passed the 100,000 mark, roughly eight months after Windows 8 went on sale in October. CEO Steve Ballmer had anticipated a total of 100,000 apps in time for July at Build, and that figure has been achieved just in time.
The 100,000 mark is rapid in comparison to Microsoft's own Windows Phone Store, which took over 18 months to reach the same 100,000 figure. In comparison, the App Store reached the 100,000 iPad-specific app milestone in around 14 months, and Android hit 100,000 after around 18 months. Numbers aren't everything and it's hard to compare all stores, but Microsoft appears to be attracting the names it needs to help push its Windows tablets. Facebook and Flipboard both recently committed to building their own Windows 8 apps, shortly after a number of new app launches."

Source: The Verge, 1st July 2013

King games have overtaken Zynga games on Facebook

"Zynga Inc.’s new chief executive officer, Don Mattrick, takes over the struggling social-gaming pioneer amid one of its biggest challenges yet: losing the No. 1 spot on Facebook Inc. to upstart King.com.
King, developer of “Candy Crush Saga,” yesterday reached 150.4 million monthly users on Facebook Inc. -- surpassing “FarmVille” maker Zynga, which has 150.2 million, according to online tracker AppData. That ended Zynga’s five-year reign as the top game maker on Facebook’s social network."

Source:  Washington Post, 2nd July 2013

Bebo's original founder bought the site back for $1m 5 years after selling it for $850m

"The founder of Bebo has bought the social network for $1m just five years after selling it for $850m.
Michael Birch tweeted that he is looking the "re-invent" the website, which he sold to AOL in 2008. AOL offloaded the site to Criterion Capital Partners (CCP) three years ago for a reported figure of less than $10m.
Mr Birch set up Bebo, which can be used to post post blogs, photographs, music, videos and questionnaires, with his wife Xochi in 2005. Three years later the couple reaped $595m after selling their 70pc stake in Bebo - which stands for "Blog Early, Blog Often" - to AOL.
However, Bebo struggled in the face of newer social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and in 2010 AOL announced it was planning to sell or shut down the site.
CCP stepped in, but Bebo filed for Chapter 11 voluntary bankruptcy protection just seven weeks ago."

Source:  The Telegraph, 1st July 2013

Myspace had 31 million visitors in the first two weeks after the relaunch

"Just in case you missed the invitation, the party is at Myspace. No, the invitation wasn’t for 2007. In fact, the social network that once attracted more site visits than Google but had since withered in the shadows of Facebook, had its official relaunch earlier this month.
With backing from Justin Timberlake and a $20 million marketing campaign, the site, which has a totally new look (a glossy, tiled homepage full of beautiful people’s profiles and a Pinterest-type layout), has got off to a pretty good restart. In just two weeks it has attracted 31 million visitors and had 995,000 downloads of its new iOS app."

Source:  Evening Standard, 1st July 2013

Nokia's factory in China has made a billion phones

Our factory Dongguan Operations made its ONE BILLIONTH #Nokia phone today, a historical record we are so proud of!! pic.twitter.com/DGI9ldOl4a
— Nokia (@nokia) June 25, 2013

"Our factory Dongguan Operations made its ONE BILLIONTH #Nokia phone today, a historical record we are so proud of!!"
Source: Tweet from Nokia, 25th June 2013

30 million wearable, wireless monitoring devices were sold in the US in 2012

"Last year, 30 million wearable, wireless monitoring devices—including those used for medical and clinical use—were sold in the U.S., according to ABI Research analyst Jonathan Collins. That figure is up 37% from 2011 and Mr. Collins says he expects sales to rise to 160 million devices a year by 2017."
Source:  WSJ, 8th January 2013
Via Lynette Webb's Interesting Snippets

Time spent on apps vs time spent on mobile web for smartphones & iPads in the US

Click to enlarge

Smartphone users spend 87% of their time using mobile apps
iPad users spend 76% of their time using mobile apps

Source:  Nielsen's Q1 2013 Cross Platform Report, 10th June 2013