39% of British internet users use ad blocking technology

"Four in ten (39 per cent) of UK Internet users use ad-blocking technology to curb the number of promotions they see while browsing as they become increasingly dissatisfied with the types of ads on show, according to a new study.
It’s not surprising then that many publishers are “abandoning the old models in favour of new ‘native’ advertising or sponsored content”, according to Reuters Digital News Report. Consumers are becoming more apathetic to online ads and increasingly searching for ways to screen them out of their experience, the report concluded, which is part of a fundamental shift in how they interact with brands online.
A third (39 per cent) of people in the UK say they ignore ads, while in the US the figure was slightly slower at 30 per cent. Around three in ten (31 per cent) consumers in the UK said they actively avoid sites where ads interfere with the content. In the US, one in two consumers do the same thing and nearly half (47 per cent) of them revealed they now use ad blocking software."

Source:  The Drum, 20th June 2015
Also - The IAB & YouGov put the figure at 15% of UK internet users; 22% of men, and 9% of  women, with penetration highest among 18-24 (34%) and 25-34 year olds (19%)
Also - Over 1m Australians
Also - 20% in Europe & US, according to Sourcepoint
Also - 24% in US on PC, but only 3% on mobile, according to Genesis Media

Criteo's State of Mobile Commerce Report - Q2 2015

Criteo State of Mobile Commerce Report Q2 2015 from CriteoReports

Kendall Jenner's 'Hair' Portrait is the most liked picture on Instagram

Posted in mid-May, 2.6m Likes by 29th June 2015

Earlier - Kim Kardashian's wedding portrait from 2014 has had 2.4m Likes

Mobile: It Changes Everything

Mobile: It Changes Everything from a16z

An updated 'Mobile is Changing The World' presentation from Benedict Evans

More than a third of UK & US online new readers have felt 'disappointed or deceived' by native ad formats

"More than a third of British and American readers of online news say they have felt “disappointed or deceived” after reading an article that turned out to be paid for by an advertiser, according to a new study by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University.
The special research, conducted for the Reuters Institute by YouGov as part of the 4 th Digital News Report, shows just how confused readers are by the labelling of so-called sponsored content and suggests that when it comes to native advertising, the risk of damaging reputations are far higher for news websites than for advertisers.
One encouraging finding for publishers is that there is far more acceptance of sponsored content outside core news – in areas such as travel, food, fashion and entertainment.
With publishers finding it harder to make money from traditional banner advertising, focus is switching to new forms of ‘native’ advertising where brand messages look more like regular content – sitting in the same templates and using the same formats that might be used for a standard piece of journalism or a user-generated post on social media.
The New York Times, the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal have set up teams to produce sponsored online content while digital-born companies like Quartz and Buzzfeed already make the majority of their money from native advertising formats."
Source:  Press release from the Reuters Institute, 16th June 2015

What teens & adults use voice search for in the US

Source:  Data from Google, quoted in Digital Marketing Magazine, 15th June 2015
Original source:  Google & Northstar Research, based on a study of 1,400 Americans in 2014

14% of UK homes subscribe to Netflix

"In the fourth quarter of 2014, it put on around 4m new subscribers worldwide to hit 57.4m and it now expects, at the very least, to repeat that growth each quarter. Our figures here show that 14.1% of UK homes now subscribe.
It’s a bold strategy. Though, as more experienced TV companies know only too well, money is no guarantor of audiences. Sceptics will tend to point out, for instance, that Netflix’s most recent flagship commission, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, is actually an NBC reject.
Good programming will obviously attract viewers - and no one’s quibbling about the likes of House of Cards. But if you’re after evidence of a paradigm shift, then you should look away now. The most telling nugget from our main bar chart is the notion that Netflix indexes poorly against households that don’t have a TV. (The households that probably consume video entertainment via broadband on other sorts of digital screen.)
In other words, digital natives are not huge fans of Netflix. Actually Netflix viewers tend to be found in cable households (Virgin Media promotes it as part of its TiVo package); they tend to be people who own three or more TV sets and also subscribe to sports and movie packages. They are, not to put too fine a point upon it, inveterate telly addicts. "

Source:  Barb Viewing Report, May 2015

Also - This report puts current levels at 17%

Moleskine sold 17m notebooks in 2014

"Last year, Moleskine sold more than seventeen million notebooks, and brought in more than ninety million euros in revenues from sales of paper products, up from just over fifty million in 2010. While some of the company’s success, especially among the young consumers who make up its fastest-growing market, can be attributed to its marketing—which is built on associations with such famous creatives as Chatwin, Hemingway, Picasso, and van Gogh (all of whom used similarly styled notebooks)—for many people, the notebook is simply superior to its digital competitors."

Source:  New Yorker, 14th June 2015

Siri processes 1bn requests a week (& more Apple stats)

"The company reported that its App Store has crossed 100 billion app downloads, with $30 billion being paid out to developers so far.
In terms of adoption of its latest software, Apple claims 55% of all Mac users are running on OS X Yosemite while 83% users are running on iOS 8.
Apple made major announcements for its digital assistant Siri this year and claimed that it serves up 1 billion requests a week and is 40% faster and more accurate compared to last year.
Maps is the other Apple service that is getting great new upgrades with iOS 9, with the company claiming that Maps was used 3.5 times more than the next leading maps app with its service getting over 5 billion requests per week.
Apple Pay, the company’s relatively new mobile payments service is now supported by 2,500 banks with there being over 1 million locations where consumers can use the service.
iOS 9 isn’t as major an update as what we’ve seen in the past. Instead, the company is working on ways to make it faster and more powerful. Apple claims iOS 9 offers a 50% reduction in CPU usage while drawing while an iPhone 6 running on iOS 9 lasts for 1 hour extra in a typical usage scenario."

Source:  Stats from WWDC 2015, reported by Next Big What, 9th June 2015

Spotify has 20m paying users, and 75m total active users

"What a difference a year makes! At the end of May 2014, we reached 10 million paying subscribers and 40 million active users. Today, we have reached more than 20 million subscribers and more than 75 million active users. 10 million subscribers in our first five and a half years – and another 10 million subscribers in just a single year! That’s an average of one new subscriber every three seconds over the last year. Wow. And, more people listening on Spotify means more payouts to the creators of the music you love.  As we grow, the amount of royalties we pay out to artists, songwriters and rights holders continues to climb faster than ever. We have now paid more than $3 billion USD in royalties, including more than $300 million in the first three months of 2015 alone. That’s good for music, good for music fans … and good for music makers. Take a look at what it means for four different types of artists. The blue columns show average actual payouts over the last 12 months, which started with 10 million subscribers; the green columns show our projected average payouts over the next 12 months, starting from our new baseline of 20 million paying subscribers"
Source:  Spotify, 10th June 2015

Earlier
60m MAUs, 15m paying - Jan 2015
50m MAUs, 12.5m paying - Nov 2014
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

Google loses an estimated $1bn a year in the US through consumers' use of ad blockers

"Ad blocking remains a controversial topic. Based on a variety of data, one company attempts to estimate the financial loss to Google. Of the estimated $41 billion in revenue Google reported in 2014, PageFair estimates that $17.6 billion came from the U.S. Some $1.9 billion represents the estimated U.S. revenue available to Google on google.com that the company did not generate as a result of the 10% of visitors having ad-blocking technology installed in their browser.
Google recovered about $942 million -- a portion of the $1.9 billion in the U.S -- by being white listed, estimates Sean Blanchfield, technology entrepreneur and CEO at PageFair, which wants to "save the free Web" by allowing publishers to serve ads blocked by browser plug-ins like Adblock Plus from Eyeo. Adblock allows people to block annoying ads, while some "acceptable ads" from Google and Microsoft filter through. The industry calls being "white listed," a hush-hush practice that insiders say requires the engines to pay a fee. The German media estimates the fee at $25 million, he said.
Ad blocking also costs brands billions in lost revenue because they lose opportunities to connect with consumers. Blanchfield believes that Google cofounder Larry Page glossed over a critical question during the company's shareholder meeting last week when an investor asked how ad-blocking technology will influence the company's main revenue stream. Page chocked it up to the industry's need to make more "useful" ads."

Source:  MediaPost, 9th June 2015
Update - Estimated to be $6.6bn globally

26% of UK homes have a Smart TV; 6% of homes have a Chromecast

"Let’s start with Smart TV’s. Mediabug Wave 6 reports that Smart TV’s are in a total of 26% of UK broadband-enabled homes: an increase of 6% in 6 months. 89% of Smart TV’s are connected to the Internet, and Mediabug’s ‘share of usage’ metrics calculate that of total online VOD viewing on devices, Smart TV’s accounts for around 16%; an increase of 5% year on year. They have been around since 2009 and are well supported by content providers, commonly featuring BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, All 4, Demand Five, Netflix and Amazon Prime apps.
Then there is Google Chromecast, a recently launched but well thought-of little dongle that you can buy for £30, allowing you to ‘cast’ content from certain apps on a device to your TV screen. Mediabug reports that 6% of homes have a Chromecast; a twofold increase in the last 6 months. Mediabug’s ‘share of usage’ metrics calculate that of total online VOD viewing, Chromecast accounts for less than 7%: an increase of 5% year on year. As a relatively new device, Chromecast supports BBC iPlayer, Netflix, Youtube, BT Sport and Now TV – but currently does not support ITV Player, All 4, Demand 5, or Amazon Prime."

Source:  Decipher Consultancy, 22nd May 2015

Gmail has 900m Users

Gmail now has over 900M users! Thanks for helping us get here. pic.twitter.com/pvz1r4WVJP

— Gmail (@gmail) May 28, 2015

Note - No mention of whether this is monthly active users, or even addresses - I have about 3 that I use regularly for example.  Caveat Emptor!

Ad blocking cost German publisher ProSiebenSat.1 €9.2m in ad revenues in 2014

"By some estimates, more than 200m people worldwide are now regular users of ad-blocking programs (Adobe, PageFair). Eyeo, the maker of Adblock Plus, the most widely used such software, says it has been downloaded more than 400m times. Until fairly recently, ads were mostly being blocked on desktop and laptop computers but now people are installing the software on their mobile devices, which are expected to account for a growing share of their time online.
[...]
Not many publishers put a figure on their losses from ad-blocking, but ProSiebenSat.1, a German media group, has said that in 2014 the practice cost it €9.2m ($10.4m)—about a fifth of its web revenues. Publishers with a male, technophile audience are worst hit, says Sean Blanchfield of PageFair, an Irish startup that helps publishers quantify and manage ad-blocking. At some online video-game sites more than half of ads get blocked."

Source:  The Economist, 6th June 2015