77% of the UK online population are active participants

"Like the population itself, the picture is nuanced but six striking themes emerged:
The model which has guided many people's thinking in this area, the 1/9/90 rule, is outmoded. The number of people participating online is significantly higher than 10%.
Participation is now the rule rather than the exception: 77% of the UK online population is now active in some way.
This has been driven by the rise of 'easy participation': activities which may have once required great effort but now are relatively easy, expected and every day. 60% of the UK online population now participates in this way, from sharing photos to starting a discussion.
Despite participation becoming relatively 'easy', almost a quarter of people (23%) remain passive - they do not participate at all.
Passivity is not as rooted in digital literacy as traditional wisdom may have suggested. 11% of the people who are passive online today are early adopters. They have the access and the ability but are choosing not to participate.
Digital participation now is best characterised through the lens of choice. These are the decisions we take about whether, when, with whom and around what, we will participate. Because participation is now much more about who we are, than what we have, or our digital skill."

Source:  Data from BBC Future Media, reported in a blog post, 4th May 2012

Note:  "The Participation Choice is a synthesis of primary and secondary research conducted over the past 18 months. The data published today are all taken from the most recent, large scale survey of 7,500 UK adults - representative of the UK online population."

92% of consumers say they trust earned media like personal recommendations above other forms of advertising

"Ninety-two percent of consumers around the world say they trust earned media, such as word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends and family, above all other forms of advertising—an increase of 18 percent since 2007, according to a new study from Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy. Online consumer reviews are the second most trusted form of advertising with 70 percent of global consumers surveyed online indicating they trust this platform, an increase of 15 percent in four years.
Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey of more than 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries shows that while nearly half (47%) of consumers around the world say they trust paid television, magazine and newspaper ads, confidence declined by 24 percent, 20 percent and 25 percent respectively since 2009. Still, the majority of advertising dollars are spent on traditional or paid media, such as television. In 2011, overall global ad spend saw a seven percent increase over 2010, according to Nielsen’s most recent Global AdView Pulse. This growth in spend was driven by a nearly 10 percent increase in television advertising, with countries, including the U.S. and China, attracting more advertising dollars versus the year prior."

Source:  Press release from Nielsen, 10th April 2012

Note - it's a pretty stunning figure - until you wonder who the 8% of people who trust TV & newspaper ads  above recommendations from friends...

There are estimated to be more than 300 companies in China creating fraudulent app reviews

"An industry insider said recently that there were at least 300 companies in China specializing in submitting fraudulent reviews for applications. The insider said that at a conservative estimate 30% of mobile applications used the services of these companies, and that 70% of applications had boosted their app rankings either using their own staff or the services of these companies. The practice of hiring people to boost app download figures and positive ratings, and to leave negative feedback for competitors' applications, is an open secret in the industry."

Source:  China Business News, via Marbridge Daily, 9th February 2012

How digital media & technology is changing retail behaviour

"Across most categories of goods, the majority of respondents reported a preference to purchase items online rather than at a physical outlet. In the UK 74% percent of consumers said they were more likely to buy flights and vacations online (globally 70%), 77% prefer to buy CDs, DVDs, books and video games online (65% globally).
However, the majority of respondents said they prefer to purchase luxury goods in store and four in ten consumers still seem to shun online grocery shopping. These trends are particularly evident in the Americas where more than three quarters of respondents said they would book a flight online, but only 21 percent said they were more likely to buy groceries online.
The survey reveals the extent to which smartphones and tablets are changing shopping behaviour. When shopping at retail outlets, 45% of UK respondents said they now use their mobile devices to locate the nearest store, 32% to research products and services, 30% for online coupons and one in 5 (19%) scan in barcodes to for product information. Globally 41% research products & services and almost a quarter pay with their mobile devices.
When buying products or services the majority of customers in the UK and globally consult feedback and ratings pages on the internet or get information on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Monitoring and managing third party information sources will therefore be a key element of any digital sales strategy."

Source:  From KPMG's Consumers & Convergence Report, reported in a press release, 5th December 2011

Methodology:  "Consumers and Convergence V: The Converged Lifestyle [hyperlink], KPMG’s survey of consumer trends in digital technology, communications and e-commerce surveyed 9,600 consumers in 31 countries ranging in age from 16 to over 65."

The preferred sources for product & service information

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from NMIncite (Nielsen & McKinsey), reported in NielsenWire 14th October 2011
Note - I'm assuming that this is based on US consumers only

42% of American Millennials like to watch TV mainly online

"Millennials Consume 42 Percent of TV Online
Millennials [16-34s] appear to have substituted television and print media for the increased online activity and media consumption. Millennials watch significantly less TV than Non-Millennials; fewer Millennials report watching 20-plus hours/week (26 percent versus 49 percent). When they are not watching live TV, Millennials are much more likely to watch shows mainly on their laptops (42 percent versus 18 percent), with DVR (40 percent versus 36 percent), or On-Demand (26 percent versus 18 percent).
Millennials Seek Peer Affirmation & Advice
Perhaps because of their need to share and to find commonalities, 70 percent of Millennials reported feeling more excited when their friends agreed with them about where to shop, eat and play. Only 48 percent of older adults were as heavily influenced by their friends and colleagues. Additionally, Millennials gather information on products and services from more channels - more Millennials than Non-Millennials reported using a mobile device while shopping to research products (50 percent versus 21 percent)."

Source:  Research from “American Millennials: Deciphering the Enigma Generation.” by Barkley with Service Management Group and the Boston Consulting Group, quoted in a press release, 18th August 2011

Methodology:  "Based on a survey of more than 5,000 respondents and 3.9 million data points, the study provides new information on a range of digital and social media habits of American Millennials as well as their attitudes in the areas of cause marketing, grocery, restaurant, apparel and travel."

Note:  For this study Millennials are defined as 16-34s year olds

72% of people active on Twitter daily publish blog posts at least once a month

"Who are Twitter users and why are they so important to your brand?
Of the users who are active on Twitter daily:
72% publish blog posts at least once a month
70% comment on others’ blog posts
61% write at least one product review a month
61% comment on news sites
56% write articles for third-party sites
53% post videos online
50% make contributions to wiki sites
48% share deals found through coupon forums
In essence: What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter."

Source:  Data from Exact Target, reported by The Next Web, 18th August 2011

Pandora users have made over 10 billion 'thumb' ratings

"Pandora has now clocked an impressive 10 billion thumb ratings, according to details disclosed by founder Tim Westergren in Los Angeles. "We've now reached 10 billion thumbs," Westergren told an audience at Musexpo at the W Hotel in Hollywood on Monday, and the accomplishment was later blogged on pandora.com.  "Of the many milestones we've hit over the past 6 years, this is perhaps the one that makes us most proud," Westergren relayed.   "Little by little we are all collectively creating a music discovery engine that might just deliver on the grand promise of the web - a completely personalized listening experience for every user, and an effective outlet for tens of thousands of deserving artists." "

Source:  DigitalMusicNews, 2nd May 2011

TripAdvisor has 45m reviews & opinions, and over 6m photos

"Milestones in the history of TripAdvisor:
- November 2000: http://www.tripadvisor.com goes live
- March 2002: The site is profitable
- April 2004: Sold to IAC
- August 2005: Part of Expedia, Inc.
- January 2005: The first hurdle of a million reviews and opinions is achieved.
- April 2008: 15 million reviews and opinions
- July 2009: 25 million reviews and opinions
- May 2010: 35 million reviews and opinions
- August 2010: TripAdvisor becomes the first travel site to have more than 40 million monthly users* to become the world's largest travel site.
- October 2010: 40 million reviews and opinions
- 2010: TripAdvisor launches 10 new sites around the world
- March 2011: 45 million reviews and opinions covering:
1) 85,000+ destinations
2) 474,000+ hotels
3) 100,000+ vacation rentals
4) 135,000+ attractions
5) 675,000+ restaurants
6) With 6,000,000+ candid traveller photos"
Source:  Press release from TripAdvisor, 12th April 2011
Note:  I'm not sure what constitutes an 'opinion' but I suspect it includes all comments on the forum

Yelp has 17m reviews and 50m monthly visitors

"Today the company has surpassed 50 million monthly unique users (as reported by their internal Google Analytics), up from 46 million the month before. And they have a total of 17 million reviews for venues around the world. CEO Jeremy Stoppelman says that the service is seeing a faster rate of growth for both contributions (reviews) and users than it has historically— in Q1, users wrote 2 million reviews, while most quarters average 1 million. In other words, even if some of these other services are gaining traction, it isn’t hurting Yelp."

Source:  Techcrunch, 4th April 2011

Pandora has 75m users

"First, a heartfelt thanks to all of you for continuing to be such engaged listeners and such wonderful evangelists. In 2010 we doubled our audience to over 75 million people! And that was mostly thanks to continued word of mouth. For that we are deeply appreciative.
As always, interacting with listeners continues to be our greatest joy, and greatest source of feedback. You now send us over 25,000 emails every month. What an incredible fountain of information, constructive feedback, and validation that continues to be... and those thumbs! In 2010 alone, you thumbed over 3 billion songs (mostly thumbs-up... phew!)."
Source:  Tim Westergren of Pandora, in the Pandora blog, 12th January 2011

The most-used words in 5 star and 1 star iPhone app reviews

"I wrote a script to crawl U.S. App Store customer reviews for the top 100 apps from every category (minus duplicates) and compute the most common words in 1-star and 5-star reviews, excluding words that were also common in 3-star reviews.
Keep in mind that the results are not representative of overall user opinions: most users don’t review apps, and people who dislike an app are more likely to leave a review than people who like it.
These are the top words by rating, with descending frequency:
*****:
awesome, worth, thanks, amazing, simple, perfect, price, everything, ever, must, ipod, before, found, store, never, recommend, done, take, always, touch
*:
waste, money, crashes, tried, useless, nothing, paid, open, deleted, downloaded, didn’t, says, stupid, anything, actually, account, bought, apple, already
Bold words are adjectives or likely to be used as adjectives in context."
Source:  Blog post by Marco Arment, 12th September 2010

Nearly 65m Facebook users 'Like' something each day

"Want to know how popular Facebook likes are? According to new statistics we’ve collected [...] just under 65 million Facebook users are liking things on a daily basis through Facebook. This is according to self-reported statistics from Facebook which until now have not been published. While more than 20 million users interact with Facebook for iPhone, this is currently the most active interaction on Facebook."
Source: Estimates by AllFacebook, 7th July 2010
Note - I don't normally list estimates; if Facebook reveal real figures I'll replace these.

Nearly half of Americans who use social media feel they can be 'brutally honest' on the internet

"Not only are many Americans sharing updates about their life (43%), what they are currently doing (36%), and places they are going (31%), many are also revealing brand, product and company preferences. Specifically, about one-quarter are revealing their dissatisfaction with companies, brands or products (26%), talking about companies, brands or products they like (23%) or giving product reviews and recommendations (19%). In fact, one-third (34%) indicate they have used social media as an outlet to rant or rave about a company, brand or product.
These are some of the findings of the Harris Poll, conducted online between April 28 and 30, 2010, among 2,131 U.S. adults ages 18 and over.
However, it's not just what people are sharing about themselves through social media; it's why they are sharing. Nearly two in five online adults (38%) say they aim to influence others when expressing their preferences online and almost half (46%) feel they can be brutally honest on the Internet.
Sharing Brand, Company or Product Recommendations via Social Media
While online Americans aged 55 and older are less likely to use social media compared to younger Americans (43% of those 55 and older, versus 78% of 18-34 year olds, 71% of 35-44 year olds and 59% of 45-54 year olds), all age groups who use social media are equally likely to share their dissatisfaction with a company, brand or product via social media (25% of those 18-34 years old, 26% of those 35-44 years old, 25% of those 45-54 years old and 29% of those aged 55 and up).
And what people say online about companies, brands and products matters. In fact, nearly half of Americans who use social media say reviews about a particular company, brand or product from friends or people they follow on social networking websites influence them either a great deal or a fair amount (45%) - the same number as Americans who say reviews in newspaper or magazine articles influence them (46%)."
Source: Press release from Harris Interactive, 3rd June 2010

IMDB's daily traffic from Facebook has doubled since integrating the 'Like' button

"More than 100,000 sites have already integrated social plugins. Across various industries, people have shown that they want to interact and share and see what their friends recommend. We are excited to report some early results that website developers have shared with us:
News: News sites have implemented social plugins to help surface individualized content for readers, and in the process seen significant increases in daily referral traffic from Facebook. For instance, Facebook referral traffic increased by 250% for ABC News and 80% for The Globe and Mail, Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper. The Globe and Mail has also found that people who have liked their Facebook Page are more engaged on their site — and comment, share, and read more.
Movies & Video: IMDb.com has seen daily referral traffic from Facebook double, and its users have generated more than 350,000 likes. Dailymotion, one of the top 50 most-trafficked websites in the world, has seen users click the Like button tens of thousands of times per day on their site. As an example, more than 250,000 users have engaged with one of the most popular videos on Dailymotion, PIXELS by Patrick Jean, and a quarter of its views are from Facebook users.
Sports: NHL.com, the official website of the National Hockey League, has seen an 80% increase in referral traffic from Facebook, as people interact with articles, scores and videos.
Publishing: Scribd, a site that helps authors publish their writing, has seen their referral traffic from Facebook double as authors gain followers among groups of Facebook friends."
Source: Facebook Developers blog, 11th May 2010

Online impressions from word of mouth recommendations are about a quarter of the level or paid advertising impressions

"People's influence on each other rivals online advertising. For comparison, for a 12-month period ending September 30 last year, Nielsen Online estimates advertisers created 1.974 trillion online advertising impressions, compared to the 500 billion impressions people make on each other about products and services. So people's online impressions on each other about products and services are about one-fourth of the online advertising impression. And peer impressions are more credible than advertising, since they come from friends. Take those numbers into your next budget meeting!"
Source: Josh Bernoff of Forrester, writing in AdAge, 20th April 2010

24% of twitter users review or rate products

"Interpret surveyed over 9,200 internet users in August, finding that roughly 24 percent of the respondents that used Twitter, reviewed or rated products online; just 12 percent of people that used other social nets—but not Twitter—said the same. Twitter users were also more likely to visit company profiles (20 percent) than non-Twitter users (11 percent), and twice as likely to click on ads or sponsored links (20 percent vs. 9 percent).
The higher rates of engagement with brands could stem from a number of factors. First, people aren’t spending as much time doing activities (commenting on photos, chatting, playing games) on Twitter, so they could be more apt to click on an ad that would take them away from the site. In contrast, it’s been proven that most ads on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, fail to garner high click-throughs or other interactions, simply because users don’t want to have their experience interrupted."
Source: Interpret research, as reported by PaidContent, 24th September 2009

44% of American Moms use social media to get recommendations on brands and products

""Mommies are flocking to social networks, according to new research from BabyCenter LLC, which runs several parenting Web and community sites.
The number of moms using social media regularly has grown from 11% in 2006 to 63% today, an increase of 462% in three years, the company said.
The study, built from a series of in-depth surveys on the U.S. BabyCenter site, found that 44% of respondents used social media for recommendations on brands and products.
Social media are not equal in online mommies’ eyes, however. Most say they use mass-reach networks such as Facebook for socializing and entertainment, but turn to specialized content sites for information and counsel from fellow parents.""
Source: 21st Century Moms report, cited by Promo magazine, 7th July 2009

As many people trust consumer opinions posted online as trust brand websites

Click to expand

"Recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising, according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries.
Ninety percent or consumers surveyed noted that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online."
Source: Nielsen Online Global Consumer Survey, cited in their blog, 7th July 2009