People lose interest in emails they subscribe to over time

Click to enlarge

Source:  MailChimp Blog, 25th November 2013

70% of Snapchat users are women

"Roughly 70% of Snapchat users are women, the chief executive of the messaging app said at a closed-door Goldman Sachs conference Wednesday.
Co-founder and CEO Evan Spiegel said Snapchat users are sending 400 million “snaps” a day on the service, where messages disappear after a few seconds, according to a person who was present at the meeting. He said half of Snapchat’s users have tried out “stories,” a feature the company introduced last month to link multiple messages together."
Source:  WSJ, 20th November 2013

The average number of sexual partners a British woman has had has doubled in 20 years

Click to enlarge

Source:  Natsal, the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles, 26th November 2013
Full Infographic here
Lancet papers here
Methodology:
"Over 15,000 adults aged 16-74 participated in interviews between September 2010 and August 2012. Studying this large representative sample of people living in Britain enabled the researchers to produce key estimates on patterns of sexual behaviour, attitudes, health, and wellbeing across the population. Two previous Natsal surveys have taken place, in 1990 and 2000, making it one of the biggest and most comprehensive studies of sexual behaviour undertaken in a single country."
Note - Yes, I know that this isn't a 'digital stat' but I think this (& other findings in the surveys) is a great example of how people's attitudes and behaviour can change over time.  I often hear people say 'people don't change, technology does' and while I agree with that to a degree (often motivations don't change...) people do change, and society does change...

There were 14.5m views of the Doctor Who tumblr on the day of the Day of The Doctor broadcast

""Doctor Who" marked its 50th anniversary over the weekend by setting a few ratings records.
"Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor" -- the official semicentennial special of the cult British sci-fi series -- rounded up 3.6 million total Whovians on Saturday, according to Nielsen.
That included 2.4 million viewers for the daytime airing of the much-anticipated special, which was beamed live to 94 countries around the world to avoid spoilers. That was a best-ever rating for BBC America, which carries "Doctor Who" in the U.S.
The rest of the U.S. audience came from a repeat on BBC America during Saturday prime time.
As befitting its status as a cult favorite, "Doctor Who" also burned up social media over the weekend.
There were 14.5 million views of "Doctor Who's" Tumblr on Saturday, more than for any other televised event, including the Super Bowl and the MTV Video Music Awards.
But the American ratings paled beside those in the U.K., where "Doctor Who" is an institution. The BBC said that 10.6 million Britons watched the program."

Source:  LA Times, 25th November 2013

Note - This is the official Doctor Who tumblr

$5.7 billion was spent on Alibaba sites on Singles Day 2013

"China’s 11/11 online shopfest – the country’s equivalent of America’s Cyber Monday – has just finished. It’s been a record-smashing mega-sale on hundreds of e-stores. Here at Alibaba HQ, the makers of China’s top online marketplaces are celebrating the biggest-ever shopping day: a grand total of $5.7 billion (RMB 35.02 billion) spent in the course of just 24 hours.
(Update: Total unique visitors on Tmall on this 11/11 hit 402 million, up from 213 million on the same day last year). The sales on Alibaba’s Tmall involved over 20,000 merchants on its online marketplace. That massive $5.7 billion figure counts only Tmall and Taobao customers who paid via the company’s own Alipay (like Paypal), so the total spending amount will be higher once all payment methods are totalled up. The most popular store on Tmall all day was the official shop of Xiaomi, China’s upstart phone-maker."

Source:  Tech In Asia, 12th November 2013
Plus - $90m for Xiaomi
Plus - Alipay processed 188m individual payments
Plus - $877m of Alibaba's total was on mobile, up 5-fold on 2012
Previously - $3bn for Alibaba in 2012

John Lewis' 2013 Christmas TV ad received nearly 90,000 mentions on Twitter in 2 days

"John Lewis's latest Christmas campaign prompted its biggest response on Twitter yet, with 80% of nearly 90,000 mentions praising the TV ad.
The ad, ‘The Bear and the Hare’, debuted on ITV’s ‘The X Factor’ on Saturday night 9 November and prompted 86,300 mentions on Twitter over the weekend, according to research from agency We Are Social.
This was up from 66,800 mentions, or 29%, from its launch weekend last year – some way short of the stellar 265% increase in conversations between 2011 and 2012.
Mentions peaked at 31,200 between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday evening, with 4,700 tweets sent between 8:17pm and 8:18 pm alone. Of the tweeters, 30% were male and 70% were female.
Some 80% of the tweets praised the ad, describing it as "cute" and "sweet", while 5% of tweeters claimed the ad had reduced them to tears. Only 1% of tweets were outright negative about the ad and John Lewis.
The campaign also had a positive impact on the brand’s social media presence. Over the weekend, John Lewis acquired 7,000 new Twitter followers, 12,000 new Facebook fans and 4,600 additional subscribers on YouTube."

Source:  Marketing Magazine, 11th November 2013
Note - I'm assuming that this was just on Saturday and Sunday - there were lots of mentions on Friday when the ad first appeared on YouTube but I'm assuming that this is for TV only

Taobao's mobile site sold RMB 100m of merchandise in the first 4 minutes of Singles Day

"According to statistics from Hangzhou-based C2C & B2C e-commerce site Taobao, gross merchandise volume (GMV) on the site's Taobao mobile client reached RMB 100 mln in the first four minutes and ten seconds of China's November 11 "Singles Day" e-commerce holiday. Within the first minute of Singles Day sales, 2 mln mobile users logged onto Taobao's mobile client. Within the first hour, more than 14 mln users logged on via Taobao's mobile client to place orders totaling RMB 1 bln."
Source:  Techweb, via Marbridge Daily, 11th November 2013
Note - people could pre-order things, so the figures are a bit skewed - full explanation here

48% of emails are opened on mobiles or tablets

"Mobile opens continued their climb toward 50% by gaining another percentage point last month. Emails opened on smartphones and tablets now account for 48% of total opens. Of course, that increase in mobile opens always has to come from somewhere: in September, desktop opens increased to 33%, while webmail opens dipped to 19%.
Mobile opens have gained 10 percentage points since September 2012, while webmail clients have lost that same amount. Interestingly enough, desktop clients have remained relatively flat over the last year. There were some bumps along the road but no overall change from twelve months ago.
iPad and iPhone dominate mobile opens, with a combined total of nearly 80%. Android makes up a respectable 20% of opens, which BlackBerry and Windows Phone combine to represent less than 1%. Growth for each mobile OS has been slow and steady increases across the board."

Source:  Research from Litmus, 8th October 2013

5 percent of Instagram ad impressions lead to 'Likes'

"On the subject of advertising, Systrom stressed that Instagram is taking it slow, and working with a handful of partners like Ben & Jerry’s and watch-maker Michael Kors to ensure the ads are pleasing; he boasted that 5 percent of the ad images have received “likes.” He also noted that location and proximity data are integral to the company’s future, but that Instagram is still exploring how to achieve a balance between the appeal of location information with users’ desire for privacy."
Source:  Kevin Systrom of Instagram interviewed by GigaOM, 6th November 2013
Note - I expect that these levels will inevitably fall as the ads get more commonplace...

Michael Kors' first ad on Instagram generated 33,000 new followers

"The post generated 33,000 new followers for Michael Kors
That’s 16 times the average number for the brand’s past 5 non-promoted posts, which were all featured on Insatgram’s popular pagemichaelkors-ad-followers-gained
The ad generated 370% more likes and was likely seen by 6.7MM People
The post generated more than 218,000 likes within 18 hours, 370% more likes than the average of their last five posts.
According to Nitrogram. judging by this time decay in likes  and reach as compared to their five previous posts it was likely the ad was shown only once in the user’s feed, unlike on other networks where promoted posts stay longer in the feed."

Source:  Social Fresh, 6th November 2013

Note - Clearly this level is a 'first ad' effect and unlikely to be repeated, but it shows the potential power of showing pics to people who aren't already your followers.

Mobile is Eating The World - November 2013 Edition

2013 11 mobile eating the world from Benedict Evans

31% of American smartphone owners use Instagram

"The near-ubiquity of cell phone ownership and the rapid rise of smartphones has created a platform for mobile photo- and video-sharing. This survey found that 92% of Americans own a cell phone, and 58% own a smartphone. Mobile apps like Instagram and Snapchat have capitalized on user bases equipped and eager to capture and share visual moments. This is our first read on Snapchat and the first time we have asked cell phone owners about Instagram.  We found:
9% of cell phone owners use Snapchat, the photo- and video-sharing app that automatically deletes images after they have been viewed.
18% of cell phone owners use Instagram, a photo- and video-sharing social media app with signature filters, recently acquired by Facebook."

Source:  Research from Pew Internet & American Life Project, reported 28th October 2013

Note - If 58% have a smartphone, and 18% of all mobile phone owners use Instagram, then 31% of smartphone owners use Instagram

Windows Phones accounted for 10% of smartphones sold in EU5 in Q3 2013

"The latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, for the three months to September 2013, shows Windows Phone now makes up one in 10 smartphone sales across the five major European markets, has overtaken iOS in Italy, and is gaining momentum in emerging markets. Android remains the dominant operating system across Europe with 71.9%, an increase of 4.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year.

Windows Phone, driven almost entirely by Nokia sales, continues to make rapid progress in Europe and has also shown signs of growth in emerging markets such as Latin America.

[...]

In Britain, Windows accounts for 11.4% of the market. Android is still the number one operating system with 58.4% while BlackBerry now only has 3.1%. Apple’s iOS has dipped by 1.0 percentage point to 27.0%, although it is expected to strengthen at Christmas.

[...]

Compared with August Windows Phone made significant gains in Italy, where its once again above 10% market share, and in Spain, where it rose from 2.2 to 3.7% share. There was also strong progress in Australia, where it went from 6.5 to 9.3% of the market, while there was a slight rebound in USA from 3% to 4.6% market share. In other markets Windows Phone generally remained generally static, which is good news given the iPhone 5S and 5C launch. Overall it grew from 9.2 to 9.8% of the EU5 countries, less than 7% away from iOS market share in the region.

Source:  Data from Kantar, reported by WM Power User, 4th November 2013

Note - Full tables in the original article

The number of billion dollar companies founded in the US by year, 2013-2010

Source:  Techcrunch, 2nd November 2013
Note - Article has lots more info, and names all the companies
Also, 2010 wasn't necessarily a bad year - the companies may be worth a billion dollars - yet.

Whatsapp users share over 400 million photos a day

Every day our users share over 400 million photos via WhatsApp... #erlang #freebsd
— jan koum (@jankoum) October 27, 2013