There are over three billion internet users

"Over three billion people are now online and information and communication technology (ICT) growth remains buoyant in just about every country worldwide, according to ITU’s flagship annual Measuring the Information Society Report.
The report is widely recognized as the repository of the world’s most reliable and impartial global data and analysis on the state of global ICT development, and is extensively relied upon by governments, financial institutions and private sector analysts worldwide.
Latest data show that Internet use continues to grow steadily, at 6.6% globally in 2014 (3.3% in developed countries, 8.7% in the developing world). The number of Internet users in developing countries has doubled in five years (2009-2014), with two thirds of all people online now living in the developing world.
Of the 4.3 billion people not yet using the Internet, 90% live in developing countries. In the world’s 42 Least Connected Countries (LCCs), which are home to 2.5 billion people, access to ICTs remains largely out of reach, particularly for these countries’ large rural populations."

Source:  Press release from the ITU, 24th November 2014

Full report here

11-15s in the UK watch half as much live TV as adults

Source:  Data from Ofcom, reported in The Guardian, 25th November 2014
Full Ofcom report here

Buzzfeed gets 5x more traffic from social sharing than from search

Source:  Buzzfeed Industry Trends, 24th November 2014
Note - lots more quite diverse stats in the full report
Note - Buzzfeed concentrates on social sharing - the figs aren't reflective of the web at large

A typical Gmail user receives about 5 emails a day

"All of the decisions revolved around the central fact that a typical Gmail user was receiving only about five emails per day, most of which were of promotional nature, and as such, required no response. This was in contrast to a typical Googler who received an average of about 450 emails per day, many of which were important to at least read, with a good chunk of them requiring a reply."
Source:  TechCrunch, 16th November 2014
Note - I'm assuming typical means modal...  & I'm assuming 'user' means 'account' - e.g. one person could have multiple accounts

Uber is active in 240 cities in 46 countries

Source:  BusinessWeek, 20th November 2014
Note - it's currently adding a new city every 2 days

18% of internet users are responsible for over 80% of video shares

"While almost one in five (17.9%) internet users are sharing video content with their social networks these ‘super sharers’ are responsible for the majority (82.4%) of all video shares.
In the Geography of Sharing report from marketing technology company Unruly, the networks used were analysed and it found that more than three quarters of video views take place outside of YouTube.
In terms of where video is being shared, it is a fragmented picture. While Facebook sees the most videos shared (59.4%) worldwide, viewers share across a multitude of platforms including Twitter (13.8%), Google+ (9.3%), Tumblr (5.7%) and Pinterest (3.9%).
Among its other findings were that South Koreans are the fastest sharers, with 20% of shares occurring within the first 24 hours of launch and its citizens are also more likely to click, replay or share an ad than any other territories worldwide.
However viewers in Germany are more likely to watch an ad to the end; 79% of Germans who watched an ad stayed till the final frame. The UK was in second place with 77%."

Source:  Data from Unruly, reported by Research Live, 17th November 2014

Netflix accounts for nearly 35% of US peak time internet traffic

"Netflix continues to dominate North American networks, accounting for 34.9 per cent of downstream traffic in the peak evening hours
Amazon Instant Video has established itself as the second largest paid streaming video service in North America. While still only accounting for 2.6 per cent of downstream traffic, its share has more than doubled in the past 18 months
In advance of plans to start offering a stand-alone streaming subscriptions in the US, HBOGO accounts for just 1 per cent of downstream traffic in the region
On a fixed network in Australasia, where Netflix isn’t even available yet, approximately 2.5 per cent of subscribers are accessing the service and it comprises as much as 4 per cent of peak downstream traffic"

Source:  Data from Sandvine, reported by Advanced Television, 20th November 2014

Full report here

Multi-Screening is now mainstream in Europe

"During peaktime viewing in the UK, 74 per cent claim to have picked up an internet connected device during TV ad breaks, with very little difference between age groups, social demographics or gender (Craft/Thinkbox ‘Screen Life: TV advertising everywhere’, 2014)
Most TV shows attract some social media commentary, but the shows which attract the most tend to be live sports and reality TV shows – the 2014 BRIT Awards in the UK saw a vast volume of Twitter conversation with 4.2 million Tweets about the show.
42 per cent of French viewers aged 15-60 say that they have engaged with a TV programme via a social network (OmnicomMediaGroup/ Mesagraph – Social Télévision)
37 per cent of Swiss say that it’s “normal” and “commonplace” to use the internet while watching TV (Publisuisse, ‘Media du Future 2017’)
In Spain, 62 per cent of people claimed in 2013 to use a second screen while watching TV – an increase of 11 percentage points compared to the previous year (Televidente 2.0, 2013)
In Sweden, 55 per cent viewers have used another screen (smartphone, tablet or computer) while watching TV (MMS Moving Images 2014:1)
33 per cent of people in Poland have multi-screened and almost half of multi-screening activity (49 per cent) is in order to look at content that is related to what is being watched (Millward Brown ‘AdReaction 2014’)."

Source:  Advanced Television, 21st November 2014

(Lots more stats in the full article)

The 'serial' podcast has nearly 1.3 million downloads per episode

"In the normally low-profile world of podcasting, “Serial” is a certified sensation—a testament to the power of great storytelling. It’s quickly become the most popular podcast in the world, according to Apple, and the fastest to reach 5 million downloads and streams in iTunes history. “Serial” is the top podcast in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, and in the top 10 in Germany, South Africa and India.
[...]
“Serial” is downloaded an average 1.26 million times per episode, sending fans into debates over the finer points of the evidence. People can hear the podcast, which is like a radio show but entirely on the Internet, either by streaming it from the “Serial” website or downloading it onto a phone, tablet or computer from a platform like iTunes."

Source:  WSJ, 13th November 2014

Consumers spend more time with mobiles than TV in the US

Source:  Data from Flurry, reported in a blog post, 18th November 2014

TV data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Note - Ofcom's International Communications Market Report gives a higher figure for TV - 293 minutes

Source - Ofcom ICMR December 2013

About 50% of YouTube's views come from mobiles or tablets

"YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki appeared at the Code/Mobile event on October 27 and shared some stats about the online video site. One of the most interesting numbers concerned mobile devices, which now supply about 50% of YouTube’s views.
This is up 10% from the last time YouTube reported any stats related to mobile viewing. In 2013, the Google-owned video platform claimed roughly 40% of the site’s views came from mobile devices. And a year before that, in 2012, only a quarter of its views were from mobile.
“Mobile is super important. I think it’s important for every business right now,” Wojcicki said to Re/code at the Code/Mobile event."

Source:  TubeFilter, 28th October 2014
Update - Confirmed by Susan Wojkicki of YouTube in July 2015

Teespring, 'the Kickstarter for T-shirts' has sold 6m shirts in 2014

"Some tech companies look to change the way we communicate or can travel in space. Teespring helps people sell t-shirts. Custom, well-made t-shirts. And it’s good at what it does.
Teespring has sold 6 million shirts this year through its customers, hundreds of whom make more than $100,000 from their tee trade. At least ten, the company says, have become millionaires from the work. Teespring claims that one in 75 Americans owns a shirt  it’s helped sell in the last year. For 2015, the startup plans to go even bigger, and it’s raised millions in venture backing to get ready. The two-year-old startup announced Tues. it’s raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Khosla Ventures, with partner Keith Rabois joining the board. Earlier investors and board members include Lars Dalgaard of Andreessen Horowitz and Sam Altman of Y Combinator."

Source:  Forbes, 18th November 2014

You need 'at least 100' Facebook friends to verify yourself on Airbnb

"At the other end of the Airbnb helpline in Colorado, “Casey” sounded incredulous. “You have how many Facebook friends?” she drawled. “Er … about 50,” I replied. Long pause. “Well, you don’t have enough for us to verify you. You’d need at least 100.”
“But”, I squeaked, “I post every now and again … I’m on Facebook most days to check on my friends and relations.” This, however, was not enough to convince Airbnb I existed. And, as I didn’t exist, I could not book a room.
Helpful Casey had another suggestion: why not upload a video of myself saying why and where I wanted to book. The problem with that, I explained, was that the Airbnb link supplied was incompatible with my iPad 2. Use your smartphone, suggested Casey. I didn’t have one, said I. There was an audible intake of breath.
Have you ever been told you don’t have enough friends – and are a Luddite to boot? It’s crushing. And more to the point, I had a flight booked to Bremen in Germany, for two; I had tickets for the Glocke concert hall; but I still had nowhere to stay on the first weekend of November – that of the Freimarkt, the oldest fair in Germany – one of the busiest on the Bremen calendar.
Earlier that week I had logged on to Airbnb for the first time in search of a room for two. I found one (with “Sabine”) that ticked the boxes, filled in my credit card details, and booked … or so I thought. Back bounced an email saying that I was not acceptable to Sabine, and my money had been returned. So I tried to book with “Harald”. The same thing happened. “Viktoria” (“Nice room, near park”) rejected me, too.
I’m a middle-aged mum of two, I’m a school governor, I have an impeccable credit record. But I couldn’t book a B&B. Not when I didn’t have enough “friends”."

Source:  The Guardian, 14th November 2014

There are approximately 200,000 film-related tweets per day

Source:  New research from Twitter, reported in a blog post, 7th November 2014

Xiaomi sold 1.2m phones during Singes Day 2014

""November 11 saw a new record for the world’s biggest shopping day as Alibaba’s shoppers spent US$9.3 billion in 24 hours on the company’s two main ecommerce marketplaces, Tmall and Taobao. The top Tmall brand store on that sales bonanza day was Xiaomi, the budget smartphone maker. Today Xiaomi revealed that it saw a record high of 1.16 million phones sold during China’s Singles Day event.
Along with Xiaomi’s other gadgets, such as its new MiBand fitness tracker, Xiaomi pulled in RMB 1.56 billion – that’s US$254 million – in sales volume in that 24-hour period. The figure is well up from Singles Day in 2013 when Xiaomi’s customers spent US$89 million.
Xiaomi points out that it was China’s top-selling phone, TV, tablet, wearable, and a few other first-place distinctions during the day of discounts. Xiaomi discounted its new Mi4 smartphone by a relatively small amount compared to some other brands’ products on Singles Day, dropping it from US$325 to US$293."

Source:  Tech In Asia, 13th November 2014

Tweets drive time-shifted TV viewing

"Not surprisingly, the most important factor changing how many viewers watch later was an episode’s live audience tune in, accounting for 42% of variance in +7 TV audiences. So, just under half of the difference between the live and +7 audiences can be explained by the size of the original live audience. Conventional wisdom on several other variables also bore out. For example, reality series were 31% more likely to be watched live. A premiere episode, regardless of genre, was 15% more likely to be watched live.
Interestingly, all 11 variables tested proved to be statistically significant. In other words, all measurements and characteristics we looked at affect time-shifted viewing. In fact, this integrated model explains 72% of the variance in the +7 audience, significantly higher than what the live audience could explain alone. Moreover, Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings (NTTR) impressions were significant, even after accounting for the effect of the other 10 variables. Specifically, a 10% increase in NTTR impressions corresponded to a 1.8% increase in the +7 audience, indicating that social media activity around TV programming is playing a role in driving viewers to watch programming later in the week."

Source:  Research from Nielsen reported in a blog post, 4th November 2014

Smartphone penetration by market, Jan-March 2014

Source:  Data from Google's Consumer Barometer, collected Jan-March 2014, charted by OnDevice Research, 11th November 2014
Link - Google Barometer

Facebook Messenger has over 500m monthly active users

"Messaging is an important part of how people stay connected and since Messenger launched in 2011 we’ve been passionate about giving people a faster and more expressive way to communicate.
Today more than 500 million people are using Messenger each month and we’re more committed than ever to make it the best possible messaging experience.
Messenger was the first of our standalone apps, and unlike our core Facebook apps, it focused on one use case – messaging. With Messenger, you can reach people instantly. It is just as fast as SMS but gives you the ability to express yourself in ways that SMS can’t. You can send stickers or videos, take selfies, chat with groups and make free calls. We’ve also continued to improve speed and reliability. Updates to Messenger ship every two weeks so it continues to evolve and improve."

Source:  Facebook newsroom, 10th November 2014

$9.3 billion was spent on Alibaba sites during Singles Day 2014

"After 24 hours of frantic clicking across China during the nation’s annual online sales day bonanza, Alibaba’s customers spent a grand total of US$9.3 billion (RMB 57.1 billion) on the company’s two estores. That’s up significantly from last year’s full-day tally of US$5.8 billion.
The real-time data from Alibaba also showed that people on phones and tablets accounted for 42.6 percent of that expenditure – another record high, up from 21 percent in 2013.
Alibaba’s customers generated a total of 278.5 million packages during the sales event – which occurs every November 11 and is called Singles Day – as shoppers snapped up discounted items offered by nearly 30,000 merchants on the company’s marketplaces, Tmall and Taobao. They’re China’s two largest ecommerce sites with a collective 250-plus million active consumers. Major Chinese and global brands took part by offering discounts, including Uniqlo, Disney, Clinique, and Xiaomi.
Gadgets and home appliances made up the top three most popular brands on Tmall in terms of what people were spending on: Xiaomi in top spot, Huawei second, and Haier third. Japan’s Uniqlo was next up in fourth place.
This year’s sales day saw expenditure on Alibaba’s sites surpass last year’s tally as early as 1:30pm, setting the stage for a record-breaking sum at the end of the promo at midnight."

Source:  Tech In Asia, 12th November 2014

Spotify has 50m active users & 12.5m paying subscribers

"Our free service drives our paid service. Today we have more than 50 million active users of whom 12.5 million are subscribers each paying $120 per year. That’s three times more than the average paying music consumer spent in the past. What’s more, the majority of these paying users are under the age of 27, fans who grew up with piracy and never expected to pay for music. But here’s the key fact: more than 80% of our subscribers started as free users. If you take away only one thing, it should be this: No free, no paid, no two billion dollars."

Source:  Blog post from Spotify, 11th November 2014

Earlier -
40m MAUs, 10m paying - May 2014
24m MAUs, 6m paying - Mar 2013
5m paying - Dec 2012
3m paying - Jan 2012
2.5m paying - Nov 2011

Facebook sees more than half a billion Android connections per month from >10,000 different device models

"The rise of Android phone usage around the world in the past few years has been staggering. Facebook now sees more than half a billion people connect each month from more than 10,000 different Android device models. As we've restructured mobile development to be owned by each individual product team within the company, we have kept small groups of people focused on developing a deeper understanding of each platform in order to provide common tools and knowledge so we can avoid re-inventing the wheel."
Source:  Facebook Code blog, 6th November 2014

The 'Kim Kardashian: Hollywood' app generated $43.4m revenue in Q3 2014

"Despite being totally free to download (and play), Kim Kardashian's super addictive smartphone app "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" is raking in MILLIONS. $43.4 million, to be precise—and that's just for the third quarter.
According to a Q314 earnings call report from the game's developer, Glu Mobile (via Daily Dot), KK:H made more than 10 other Glu-owned apps combined. While not necessary to play, in-app purchases can be made to make advances in the game. Over 22.8 million people have downloaded it since it was released in June, and collectively, it's been played for more than 5.7 billion minutes (though, whether the players are willing to admit that is another story)."

Source:  Elle, 9th November 2014

China has over 40 million 4G subscribers

"Yesterday, China’s Ministry of Industry and Informatization Technology (MIIT) released a report saying that the country now has more than 43 million 4G subscribers. Although July’s numbers came from a different source – China’s State Council Information Office – MIIT’s report suggests that over the last few months, the country has gained nearly 30 million new 4G subscribers.
Given that 4G was first launched in China all the way back in December of 2013, this increased growth speed is good news. Subscriber numbers grew slowly between 4G’s launch in the winter and this past summer, thanks in part to the fact that the government issued a 4G operating license only for China Mobile’s TD-LTE network, and not for the competing FDD-LTE networks of China Mobile and China Unicom. Its intent was to bolster the domestically developed TD-LTE standard as the standard for 4G at home and abroad."

Source:  Tech In Asia, 6th November 2014

Tinder has had 40m downloads

"Dressed in skinny jeans and a blue blazer, Rad unspooled a series of ever more staggering stats. Tinder, which has logged 600% growth over the past 12 months, has been downloaded 40 million times since it launched in 2012. The 30 million people who have registered collectively check out 1.2 billion prospective partners daily—that’s 14,000 per second. And they’re not just kicking the tires: Tinder is now facilitating almost 14 million romantic matches every 24 hours. As originally planned, Rad then confidently revealed the idea for the premium service, as 1,000 tweets shot across the Internet heralding the news. In the hallway immediately after the talk, he did a live interview with CNBC. “After this last year,” he sighs in retrospect, “being able to detach like that onstage was a walk in the park.”"
Source:  Forbes, 4th November 2014
Related - Tinder has a minimum age limit of 13

Just over half of the world's web content is estimated to be in English

"The English domination of the web is completely divorced from the language’s presence in the human population. “Just over half (55.8%) of Web content is estimated to be in English despite the fact that less than 5% of the world’s population speak it as a first language, with only 21% estimated to have some level of understanding,” according to GSMA and Mozilla (pdf). “By contrast, some of the world’s most widely spoken languages, such as Arabic or Hindi, account for a relatively small proportion of the Web’s content (0.8% and less than 0.1% respectively).”"
Source:  Quartz, 6th November 2014

'Monty The Penguin' had over 17m views online in the first weekend

YouTube - 10,536,535

Facebook - 5,783,415 (with 150,941 shares)

Twitter - Twitter doesn't show views in its player, but the video has had 32,000 shares, so if the share rate is the same as on Facebook you'd expect about 1.2m views (approx 1/5 of Facebook's figures)

Video was released at 8am on Thursday 6th November.  Numbers retrieved at 9.30am, Monday 10th November

Note 1 - Views and reach are not the same thing.  Lots of people will have watched more than once, or on more than one platform.  This does not mean that 17 million people have seen the video

Note 2 - John Lewis has been paying promote the video, at least on Facebook - see below, screengrabbed on Friday night - these video views are not necessarily 'organic'

Note 3 - However there will also be other copies uploaded, plus parodies and remixes, which aren't counted in these numbers.

Update - after 8 days - Fri 14th Nov
YouTube - 14,151,257

Facebook - 5,992,387 (with 154,438 shares)

Twitter - Still at about 32,000 shares

Update - 14th Nov - A colleague writes:
"The Facebook video stats are quite misleading as they count an autoplay video without sound as a view. On [our client] we’ve seen that the drop off rate for autoplay videos is high, you lose 50% - 70% of viewership after 5 seconds, as people continue to scroll down their feed. 

Facebook’s video views are really impressive, but marketers who move from YouTube to Facebook will be disappointed by the number of completed views with sound. "

The 2014 'Monty The Penguin' John Lewis Christmas Ad had over 4m views on YouTube in 24 hours

Screengrab taken at 8am, 7th November 2014; ad released at 8am 6th November
See the ad here
Notes -
I'm not sure whether paid views were used - this is not necessary 'organic' views
This is just the figure for the official YouTube upload - versions were also uploaded to Facebook and Twitter's video plaftorms, among others
The ad has not yet been shown on TV - it launches tonight on Channel 4

Update - Unruly, via Business Insider, puts YouTube on 4.1m views and Facebook on 2.8m views in 24 hours

Tinder has a minimum age limit of 13

"Eligibility. No part of Tinder is directed to persons under the age of 13. You must be at least 13 years of age to access and use the Service. Any use of the Service is void where prohibited. By accessing and using the Service, you represent and warrant that you have the right, authority and capacity to enter into this Agreement and to abide by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement. If you create an account, you represent and warrant that you have never been convicted of a felony and that you are not required to register as a sex offender with any government entity. Using the Service may be prohibited or restricted in certain countries. If you use the Service from outside of the United States, you are responsible for complying with the laws and regulations of the territory from which you access or use the Service."
Source:  Tinder terms & conditions, retrieved 4th November 2014
Note - You need to be on Facebook to sign up for Tinder, so this is simply Tinder's way of authenticating identity.

Publicis bought Sapient for $3.7bn

"Global ad giant Publicis is spending big to position itself as the top agency for brands riding the digital wave, after it announced a deal that sees it acquire Sapient for $3.7 billion.
Publicis is paying $25.00 per share in an all-cash transaction at a total valuation that is a 44% premium to Nasdaq-listed Sapient’s most recent share price, as of October 31. The deal, which is described as a merger, will see Sapient become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Publicis Groupe.
The deal has been approved by both companies’ boards, but remains subject to the usual regulatory approval and other red tape. Once complete, Publicis intends to create ‘Publicis.Sapient,’ a new venture that will unite Sapient’s three arms — SapientNitro, Sapient Global Markets, Sapient Government Services — with Publicis’ existing digital services — DigitasLBi, Razorfish Global and Rosetta — and focus on “digital transformation at the convergence of communication, marketing, commerce and technology.”"

Source:  Techcrunch, 3rd November 2014

The fastest companies to reach a $1bn valuation

Fastest launch-to-$1B valuation YouTube $1.65B 20 months Groupon $1.35B 17 months Slack $1.12B 14 months http://t.co/vAB2xGtJhY
— Doug MacMillan (@dmac1) October 31, 2014

& also

@markstrefford Good call! Instagram $1B 18 months
— Doug MacMillan (@dmac1) October 31, 2014

Note - Doug MacMillan is a tech reporter for WSJ

Yahoo & Tumblr together have 1bn MAUs, 550m on mobile

Correction to last tweet: Yahoo + Tumblr over 1 bln monthly actives, 550 million mobile (Not just Tumblr)
— Doug MacMillan (@dmac1) October 21, 2014

Note - Original tweet that he is correcting
Note - Doug MacMillan is a tech reporteer for WSJ

ApplePay signed up 3 million cards in the first week

Hearing that #ApplePay has now signed up 3M cards. (Last night Tim said 1M in first 72 hrs.) Not bad at all, @Apple.
— Amir Efrati (@amir) October 28, 2014

Note - Amir Efrati is a reporter at The Information
Note - 3m cards doesn't mean 3m people - you can upload multiple cards and choose which to pay with (as far as I know)

Mobile is Eating The World, Oct 2014

Mobile Is Eating the World from a16z

& here's a video of the slides, with Benedict Evans explaining them.  Explains the picture of the pot plant on slide 36!