Sina Weibo's 300m users make over 100m posts a day

"According to Sina’s unaudited financial report, there are now over 300 million registered users on Sina Weibo now that generate over 100 million posts every day. 9% are daily active users. Sina will invest in Weibo 160 million in 2012.
According to Sina CEO, Charles Chao, Sina will promote microblogging payment system, credit system, and data mining system structures to further improve the commercialization of the microblogging infrastructure.
Sina Weibo will launch a new Enterprise Edition in order to attract more business users. Sina Weibo currently has over 130 thousand certified business accounts."

Source:  China Internet Watch, 29th February 2012

A typical Facebook post only reaches 16% of friends

"Amongst all the business-related news at FMC, Facebook revealed that the average news feed story from a user profile reaches just 16 percent of their friends. Your actively shared links, photos, and status updates probably reach much higher than 16 percent of your friends, while more inane auto-generated posts about new friendships, wall posts, and articles you read may only be seen by your closest buddies.
[...]
After his Q&A session about ads during the Facebook Marketing Conference, I followed up with Boland, asking if the 16 percent average distribution rate hampered communication. He defended Facebook’s news feed, saying “No, there are pieces of content you create that are interesting, and there’s some that are not.” And the 16 percent doesn’t just apply to users. Business Pages have the same average reach, which is why Facebook is launching its new “Reach Generator” to help marketers buy extra distribution of their Page posts on the ads sidebar, in the web and mobile news feed, and even on the logout page.
The stat from Director of Product Marketing Brian Boland was backed up by VP Chris Cox who said this holds true “in aggregate across all profiles, all types of content, all interactions, all ages, and all demographics.” By reducing the reach of low relevance posts, Facebook leaves news feed space for compelling wedding photos, new job announcements, funny videos, and urgent questions. Still, it means the ambient intimacy of the news feed can’t completely replace the reliability for direct communication."

Source:  TechCrunch, 1st March 2012

There were 3.4m comments in social media about the Oscars

"Social TV tracker Bluefin Labs counted 3.44 million “social comments” about last night’s Oscar awards. That metric, which primarily tracks Twitter usage but also includes some data from Facebook and other services, is certainly big. But it’s much smaller than two other big live-TV events this month. Bluefin counted some 12 million comments for the Super Bowl, and 13 million for the Grammys."

Source:  AllThingsD, 26th February 2012

"Several hundred" YouTube partners made more than $100,000 in 2011

"A Google spokeswoman says that "several hundred" of its partners made more than $100,000 in 2011, up 80% from the "couple of hundred" partners who made more than that in 2010. YouTube partners have also increased to 30,000 in 2011 from 20,000 in 2010, says Tom Pickett, YouTube's global director of content, operations and online creators."

Source:  Wall Street Journal, 2nd February 2012

Kickstarter was originally conceived as a way of saving 'Arrested Development'

"Did you know that Kickstarter was originally conceived as a way to save Arrested Development?  Arrested Development happens to be one of my favorite shows of all time.  The idea was to raise enough money in preorder DVD sales to warrant Fox picking up the Emmy winning show for a 4th season."

Source:  IndieGameMag, 15th October 2010

The most talked about celebrities on Sina Weibo in China

Click to enlarge

Source:  Press release from CIC, 14th December 2011
Note - Sina Weibo is China's biggest micro-blogging platform - 'China's Twitter' (if you must)

There are over 200,000 LEGO videos on YouTube, and over 1m LEGO photos on Flickr

"The book is full color, hardcover, with 304 pages. There are 12 chapters that cover topics such as: The History of LEGO, Minifig Mania and LEGO Art.
I love some of the tidbits included in the text, such as the fact that there are over 200,000 LEGO videos on YouTube! Wow, who knew? Now I want to go waste hours watching them  Or what about the over 1 million photos that are tagged with LEGO on Flickr?"

Source:  From a review of the book Cult of LEGO, on the site The Gadgeteer, 24th October 2011

(Does anyone have a better source for the stats..?)

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

The 'half life' of a popular link shared on Twitter is 3 hours

"We can evaluate the persistence of the link by calculating what we’re calling the half life: the amount of time at which this link will receive half of the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak. For this link the half life was 70 minutes, which captures all the clicks between the grey lines on the graph above.
Let’s look at a second link - East Coast earthquake: 5.8 magnitude epicenter hits Virginia - , this one first shared by the Washington Post on Twitter.
Rate of clicks per minute on “East Coast earthquake: 5.8 magnitude epicenter hits Virginia”
While the exact details of the traffic are a little different, and the scale of the traffic to this link is much larger, we see essentially the same pattern: a fast rise, and a more relaxed drop-off. Noticeably though this link a half life of only 5 minutes: after 5 minutes this link had seen half of the clicks it would ever see.
This link is associated with a very timely event (an earthquake on the US East Coast) as opposed to the previous link (pictures of otters and kittens are clearly interesting all the time). We think that this difference in content drives the difference in dynamics of these two links. However, one alternative theory that comes up again and again is that the dynamics of the link traffic depend on where the link is posted: do links posted on facebook last longer than they do on twitter?
So we looked at the half life of 1,000 popular bitly links and the results were surprisingly similar. The mean half life of a link on twitter is 2.8 hours, on facebook it’s 3.2 hours and via ‘direct’ sources (like email or IM clients) it’s 3.4 hours. So you can expect, on average, an extra 24 minutes of attention if you post on facebook than if you post on twitter."

Source:  Analysis by Bitly, reported on their blog, 6th September 2011

The growth of Flickr

Click to enlarge

"22 Oct 04: 1,000,000
20 Apr 05: 10,000,000
15 Feb 06: 100,000,000
22 Sep 06: 250,000,000
15 May 07: 500,000,000
19 Jul 07: 850,000,000
06 Oct 07: 1,500,000,000
13 Nov 07: 2,000,000,000
17 May 08: 2,500,000,000
03 Nov 08: 3,000,000,000
04 May 09: 3,500,000,000
11 Oct 09: 4,000,000,000
18 Sept 10: 5,000,000,000
1 Aug 11: 6,000,000,000"
Source:  Blog post on Kullin.net, 9th August 2011

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

Twitter is valued at $8bn

"Twitter, the microblogging website that lets users tweet messages of 140 characters or less, is now worth $8bn (£4.9bn). The firm's new price tag comes after a $400m investment in the loss-making venture from serial social media investor DST Global. Twitter is now nominally worth about the same as rating agency Moody's, which had revenues of $1.2bn in the first six months of 2011 and is nearly as valuable as Marks & Spencer.
The huge valuation reflects high expectations for the company. Confirming the investment, Twitter also announced that its users now send 200m tweets a day, up from 65m a year ago."

Source:  The Guardian, 2nd August 2011

The optimum number of times to post to Facebook is three per week

"One of the most common questions I hear about Facebook marketing, is: “How often should I post to my page?” And of course, I wasn’t happy that I didn’t have hard data to backup any answer I might give, so I did a little analysis.

I looked at over 2,600 of the most liked Facebook pages and their posts per day rates. What I found was surprising. As pages posted more than once a day they tended to have fewer likes, especially once they got past a 3 posts per day level."

Source:  Dan Zarella in his blog, 13th January 2011
Note - see Dan's blog for a great chart visualising this.

1 in 5 luxury brands on Facebook don't allow fans to post on their wall

"Facebook recently announced that, as of August this year, all brand Pages will be forced to allow fans to post on their Walls. Several brands, particularly those in the heavily-regulated pharmaceutical industry, prefer not to allow their fans to engage in this manner.
L2's recent study of 100 luxury brands, the "Prestige 100", across auto, beauty, fashion, jewelry, and spirits and Champagnes found that Facebook's decision will be good for brand engagement.
[...]
However, the study findings reveal that one in five of the 100 luxury brands, many of which are world leaders, do not allow fans to post on their Facebook Walls, suggesting the industry continues to treat the social network as a one-way communication channel."
Source:  Research by L2, reported by Biz Report, 7th June 2011

A Facebook account with 1m fans generates an average of 826 likes and 309 comments per post

"Social media brand monitoring platform, Simplify360, explored the relationship between the number of Facebook fans and engagement level to reveal that on an average, each new post generates 826 likes and 309 comments.
The research firm took 50 Facebook fan pages with a random mix of brands from all over the world from consumer brands, to sports teams, to celebrities."

Source:  Data from Simplify360, reported by The Next Web, 17th May 2011

One third of all items posted to Facebook are from mobile devices

"Some stats have been published, by researchers and the company themselves, about mobile usage of Facebook. But to content creators, one of the most important uses of the social network is when users create posts, sometimes posting original content, often sharing articles and media found elsewhere on the web. I was unable to find much data about how much of this activity occurs via mobile devices, so I decided to research my own.
I used a random sample set of more than 70,000 Facebook public posts (those from users with open privacy settings). The data includes status updates, videos, links and photos. 32.69% of those posts were created from mobile devices. The mobile Facebook website, m.facebook.com lead mobile usage with more than 18% of posts created through it."

Source:  Research by Dan Zarrella, posted onto his blog, 9th May 2011 

Over a million people in the UK used Facebook statuses to discuss the Royal Wedding on the day of the wedding

"Over a million people in the UK used Facebook statuses to discuss the Royal Wedding in the past 24 hours.
During this morning alone some 684,399 status updates referencing the wedding were posted in just 4 hours in the UK – equating to an average of 47 mentions every second.
Many people in the UK were so excited they couldn’t sleep, with just under 500 people updating about the pending nuptials per hour ahead of 8am
Much has been said about the US obsession with today’s wedding – and this was reflected in our numbers – with greater numbers of American Facebook users posting updates than those from the UK – 1.953 million to the UK’s 1.004 million.
So who were people talking about?
David Beckham’s arrival led to a surge in discussion – with 9,000 mentions of his name in just 20 minutes!
Just under double the number of people were talking about David Beckham than Victoria Beckham
The Queen and Prince Philip didn’t even feature in the top list of discussed people – and Prince Andrew was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, we saw Harry’s position at number three and fledgling Royal celebrity Pippa Middleton at number 8
Kate’s rebrand into ‘Princess Catherine’ has begun in earnest, with nearly 2,000 people mentioning her new name for the first time after the ceremony
Prince Beatrice’s hat became the subject of a Facebook fan page – ‘Princess Beatrice’s Ridiculous Royal Wedding Hat’ (4000 fans)
US versus UK
Despite not featuring in the top ten list in the UK, in the US the Queen was the 14th most discussed topic – with a position in the list similar to that of Victoria Beckham in the UK.
Here’s the list for the UK:
1 - Kate Middleton - 131,385 mentions
2 - Prince William - 104,747 mentions
3 - Prince Harry - 64,107 mentions
4 - David Beckham - 22,421 mentions
5 - Victoria Beckham - 12,346 mentions
6 - Elton John - 12,283 mentions
7 - Princess Diana - 11,103 mentions
8 - Pippa Middleton - 8,619 mentions
9 - Prince Charles - 6,791 mentions
10 - Princess Beatrice - 4,439 mentions
11 - Princess Catherine - 1,928 mentions
12 - Princess Eugenie - 1,385 mentions
13 - Guy Ritchie - 290 mentions"
Source:  'Note' (Blog post) by Facebook on 29th April 2011
Note - this continues at length - Facebook have done a really good job with blowing their own trumpet here!

Tencent's microblog has 160m registered users

"During the annual conference recently held in Beijing by Chinese internet giant Tencent's online advertising arm, Tencent Mind, Tencent VP Sun Zhonghuai announced that as of March 31, Tencent Microblog had 160 mln registered users and 93 mln monthly active users, with more than 1 bln updates posted each month. More than 10 mln users are following twelve or more verified celebrity accounts on the service. More than 20,000 web and desktop applications hook into the Tencent Microblog API, a figure growing by more than 1,000 per day, and Tencent has partnered with 8,000 websites - and an additional 300 per week - for the service. More than 3,500 advertisers have signed on for the service, with more than 40 corporate marketing campaigns currently active on Tencent Microblog."

Source:  BiaNews, reported by Marbridge Daily, 4th May 2011

Twently year old Tom Ridgewell - Tomska - earns over £3,500 a month on YouTube

"When it comes to money we all use it, most of us earn it and nearly everyone wants more of it.
But unless your surname is Zuckerberg or Page when it comes to the internet, making money for a lot of people starts and ends with sites like eBay.
Not for 20-year-old student Tom Ridgewell, who's one of a new generation of YouTube stars making thousands of pounds through the site every month.
"I like to think I work in comedy," he says.
"I just try to make funny videos really - ones that make me laugh."
He's written, produced and directed dozens of short films, sketches and cartoons.
But get onto his channel and it's the numbers that really stand out: 55 million views and 220,000 subscribers - numbers he's been able to translate into money.
"They put adverts around your videos and you get a cut of that," Tom explains.
He wouldn't give away specific numbers but told Newsbeat he earns between £3,500 and £7,000 each month."
Source:  BBC Newsbeat, 20th April 2011

50% of tweets with links are generated by just 20,000 twitter users

"We study several longstanding questions in media communications research, in the context of the microblogging service Twitter, regarding the production, flow, and consumption of information. To do so, we exploit a recently introduced feature of Twitter---known as Twitter lists---to distinguish between elite users, by which we mean specifically celebrities, bloggers, and representatives of media outlets and other formal organizations, and ordinary users. Based on this classification, we find a striking concentration of attention on Twitter---roughly 50% of tweets consumed are generated by just 20K elite users---where the media produces the most information, but celebrities are the most followed."
Source:  Shaomei Wu, Cornell University, Jake M. Hofman, Yahoo! Research, Winter A. Mason, Yahoo! Research, Duncan J. Watts, Yahoo! Research, 'Twitter Flow' 28th March 2011
(Includes a link to download the full research report)
Note 1 - Why just just looked at tweets with links (& in fact just tweets with B.t.ly Urls:
From the full pdf:
"In addition to the follower graph, we are interested in the content being shared on Twitter|particularly URLs|and so we examined the corpus of all 5B tweets generated over a 223 day period from July 28, 2009 to March 8, 2010 using data from the Twitter \ rehose," the complete stream of all tweets2. Because our objective is to understand the flow of information, it is useful for us to restrict attention to tweets containing URLs, for two reasons. First, URLs add easily identi able tags to individual tweets, allowing us to observe when a particular piece of content is either retweeted or subsequently reintroduced by another user. And second, because URLs point to online content outside of Twitter, they provide a much richer source of variation than is possible in the typical 140 character tweet. Finally, we note that almost all URLs broadcast on Twitter have been shortened using one of a number of URL shorteners, of which the most popular is http://bit.ly/. From the total of 5B tweets recorded during our observation period, therefore, we focus our attention on the subset of 260M containing bit.ly URLs."

Note 2 - According to the authors of the report, in an email to me in response to my queries, 'attention' is actually defined as being potentially exposed to tweets.  So if I follow @aplusk I am paying attention to his tweets.  It's a bit of a shame that they've used this very low measure of involvement, rather than to look at clicks, re-tweets or replies, in my opinion
So in fact the title should say "50% of the potential impressions generated by tweets with links are generated by just 20,000 users"