High frequency hearing loss among American teenagers doubled between 1985 and 2008

"The always-on, always-cranked lifestyle has obvious consequences, but is it really this bad? According to recent research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, hearing loss has essentially doubled since 1985. The results, officially released a few months ago, unsurprisingly peg MP3 players and smartphones as a major culprit.    
And the numbers are hard to look at. "High frequency hearing loss (HFHL) doubled over the 24-year period from 10.1 percent in 1985 to 19.2 percent in 2008," researching PhDs Abbey L. Berg and Yula C. Serpanos relayed after combing through decades of data.  But once data is analyzed through 2011, noticeable hearing loss among teenagers may have pushed past the 20-mark."

Source:  Data from the Journal of Adolescent Health, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 5th July 2011

Zynga has 232m monthly active users

Click to enlarge

Source:  SEC filing by Zynga, 1st July 2011

Samsung has sold 3m Galaxy S II handsets since late April

"Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, is about to be crowned the new leader in the mobile phone world after selling more than 3m units of its Galaxy S II smartphone since its debut in late April, and around 19m smartphones in all during the past quarter.
Analysts think that the Android-based Galaxy S II could be the company's best-selling model ever, with sales potentially hitting 20m units. Overall, the company could have captured 17% of the world smartphone in the past three months."

Source:  The Guardian, 5th July 2011

Chrome now has over 20% share

Click to enlarge (Chrome is shown in Green, IE in Blue)

Source:  StatCounter, retrieved 5th July 2011

HTC's sales nearly doubled Y-o-Y in June 2011

"Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp's consolidated sales for June were T$45.05 billion ($1.55 billion), up 87.8 percent from the same month a year earlier.
The monthly sales compared with T$23.991 billion a year ago and T$40.621 billion in the previous month.
The year-on-year growth rate of sales in June slowed from May's 116 percent. In January 2011, sales had grown 213 percent year on year."

Source:  Reuters, 3rd July 2011

Apple devices account for 20% of mobile ad impressions in Europe (estimate)

"The pull of Apple in mobile is undeniable, with the brand regularly leading brand surveys and the term fanboy all but synonymous with its products. Today, some stats out from the mobile advertising network InMobi shows just how much the company’s products get used for advanced mobile data services compared to other devices. On the strength of just three products—the iPhone, iPod and iPad—Apple ranks as the most popular maker on the company’s mobile ad network in Europe, beating out companies that in unit terms have much bigger market shares, like Nokia and Samsung.
The data, compiled in the month of May, charts ad impressions on the InMobi ad network, which says that it serves 35.7 billion monthly mobile advertising impressions worldwide, with 3.8 billion of those in Europe.
InMobi notes that a lot of the growth for Apple, which now has a 19.5 percent share of the market (a rise of 6.3 percent over the past three months), was led by ad impressions on the iPad. The tablet had 80 million impressions during the month in the region, making it the sixth most-popular mobile device in Europe.
Android’s share has gone down by 6.1 percent in the past three months, although it still remains the biggest mobile platform in terms of ad requests—that is, taking all Android handset makers’ impressions collectively. And iPhone still remains the single most popular device."

Source:  Data from mobile network InMobi, reported by PaidContent, 4th July 2011

More than half of new handsets bought in the US are smartphones

"Smartphones continue to grow in popularity. According to Nielsen’s May survey of mobile consumers in the U.S., 38 percent now own smartphones. And 55 percent of those who purchased a new handset in the past three months reported buying a smartphone instead of a feature phone, up from 34 percent just a year ago.
Android continues to be the most popular smartphone operating system, with 38 percent of smartphone consumers owning Android devices. However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months."

Source:  Data from Neilsen, reported in Nielsen Wire, 30th June 2011

Ownership of eBook readers doubled in the US in the 6 months to May 2011

"The share of adults in the United States who own an e-book reader doubled to 12% in May, 2011  from 6% in November 2010.  E-readers, such as a Kindle or Nook, are portable devices designed to allow readers to download and read books and periodicals.  This is the first time since the Pew Internet Project began measuring e-reader use in April 2009 that ownership of this device has reached double digits among U.S. adults.
Tablet computers—portable devices similar to e-readers but designed for more interactive web functions—have not seen the same level of growth in recent months.  In May 2011, 8% of adults report owning a tablet computer such as an iPad, Samsung Galaxy or Motorola Xoom.  This is roughly the same percentage of adults who reported owning this kind of device in January 2011 (7%), and represents just a 3 percentage-point increase in ownership since November 2010.  Prior to that, tablet ownership had been climbing relatively quickly."

Source:  Report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 27th June 2011

Chinese mobile microblog Yidong Weibo has 66m registered users

"Hang Guoqiang, head of China Mobile's mobile internet base and general manager of Guangdong Mobile's data division operations center, recently disclosed that as of May 2011, registered users of the operator's Yidong Weibo ("Mobile Microblog," formerly 139 Shuike) microblogging platform reached 65.85 mln, with monthly active users reaching 14.8 mln, and daily postings reaching 2 mln."

Source:  Sohu IT, via Marbridge Daily, 4th July 2011

Top Trending Topics for H1 2011

And, here are the top Trending Topics for the first half of 2011, divided into the two most popular categories:

World events/News
AH1N1 - Swine Flu
Mubarak - former Egyptian President
Easter - Christian holiday
Cairo - capital of Egypt
#prayforjapan - sentiment following the March earthquake and tsunami
Chernobyl - site of nuclear disaster in 1986
Libia/Libya - site of an ongoing civil war
Fukushima - Japanese nuclear power plant
William & Kate - Newly-named Duke and Duchess of Cambridge
Gadafi - Libyan political leader

Pop culture
Rebecca Black - pop singer
Femme Fatale - newly-released Britney Spears album
Charlie Sheen - actor
#tigerblood - hashtag popularized by Charlie Sheen
Nate Dogg - rapper
Anderson Silva - Brazilian mixed martial artist
Tom & Jerry - famous cartoon
Mumford & Sons - British rock band
Bieber alert - referring to artist Justin Bieber
Queen Gaga - referring to artist Lady Gaga
Source:  Twitter blog, 30th June 2011

Twitter users send 200m tweets a day

"Halfway through 2011, users on Twitter are now sending 200 million Tweets per day. For context on the speed of Twitter’s growth, in January of 2009, users sent two million Tweets a day, and one year ago they posted 65 million a day."

Source:  Twitter blog, 30th June 2011

The HBO Go app has been downloaded 3m times

"If you don't believe cord cutting exists and that there isn't any competition between Netflix and cable programmers, then you needn't read on.
If on the other hand, you at least see the potential for Netflix to some day snatch customers away from the cable guys, then take note: this weekend HBO expects to see the 3 millionth download of the HBO Go app, which debuted on May 2, a company spokesman told CNET. There are 28 million HBO subscribers in the United States so the 3 million downloads would indicate that roughly 10 percent of the company's audience has tried out the app.
That's pretty good when you consider not all cable providers offer it (you listening Time Warner Cable?). The 3 million mark could be surpassed today at 9 p.m. during the season premiere of the popular vampire romp "True Blood."
HBO is dangling a carrot for "True Blood" followers to download the app, which enables subscribers of the premium cable network to watch more than 1,400 shows on iPads, iPhones, and Android devices. HBO Go users will get to watch next week's episode directly following the season premiere tonight.
The app, which has been applauded by critics as well as users, saw 1 million downloads in its first week. A big part of the app's success, beyond the slick way it organizes the material and the high quality of the stream, is the vast amount of content available. This isn't Hulu Plus, which skimps on the number of back episodes it offers from popular shows. HBO doubled down on HBO Go and gives a user access to everything in the vault, which conceivably risks sales of DVD box sets."

Source:  Cnet, 26th June 2011