US iPhone game sales are estimated to exceed PSP game sales

Click to enlarge

"NPD Group shows that combined U.S. console and portable software revenue was approximately $11 billion and $9.9 billion in 2008 and 2009, respectively. After estimating portable sales, we were able to back into console revenues. We then added our own estimates for iPhone game revenue, detailed later, which total $115 million and $500 million for 2008 and 2009, respectively.
With these figures, our main finding is that iPhone (and iPod touch) is a gaming platform to be reckoned with. Controlling 5% revenue of a $10 billion industry in just a year and a half is significant. From a market share perspective, console games lost ground to portable platforms and iPhone. While the downturn in the economy may have dampened sales of the more expensive console games category, there is no denying that iPhone has generated substantial revenue and entered strongly into a mature industry.
More interesting to us than iPhone's impact on U.S. gaming was its impact on the portable category, which we estimate totaled $2.25 billion and $2.55 billion in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Michael Pachter, managing director at Wedbush Morgan Securities and a prominent video game analyst, suggests "iPod touch is the most dangerous thing that ever happened" to game publishers. As prices come down for the iPod Touch, and games sold through the App Store continue to have lower price points, more of the young gaming generation may switch to Apple devices over Sony PSP and Nintendo DS for gaming. Further, Apple has squarely positioned the iPod Touch as a gaming machine.
From what we calculate, consumers are downloading iPhone games in droves. Comparing iPhone against Sony and Nintendo games sales shows that Apple has taken nearly one fifth of the portable market in 2009, largely at the expense of Sony PSP. With Sony PSP Go, Sony's latest effort to revive its portable sales, having fallen short of expectations, Sony finds itself now challenged by two competitors in this segment."
Source: Blog post by Flurry, 22nd March 2010

Spotify is used by 15-18% of the Swedish population

"The conversion numbers are getting better. "We're now in six countries, and have more than 320,000 paying subscribers," Ek relayed. Back of the envelope math? Paying subs are floating at around 4.6 percent, given a top-line estimate of 7 million users (also offered by Ek). Last month at the New Music Seminar in Los Angeles, Ek disclosed a paid subscriber number of 250,000.
Other stats from the chat? Spotify currently houses 100 million playlists, of which 30 million are albums. In Sweden, the app is used by 15-18 percent of the population, and the resulting swell is happening alongside album sales increases."
Source: Daniel Ek of Spotify, speaking at SXSW, reported by DigitalMusicNews, 17th March 2010

Only 25 artists made more than $10,000 from on-demand music streams in the US in 2009

"Billboard analysis shows that even the amount of money earned by top artists from on-demand streams and noninteractive streams (such as Internet radio) is, in plain terms, shockingly low.
When Billboard calculated the rankings for its annual Money Makers report, the music trade magazine assigned a value to each digital download or song streamed based on information about labels' licensing deals with those services and assumptions made about standard artist contracts.
The results show that of the more than 100 artists examined to compile the Money Makers list, only 10 made more than $2,000 from noninteractive streams in 2009, with Beyonce topping the list with an underwhelming $5,000. Only 25 artists made more than $1,000 from on-demand streams, with Michael Jackson topping that list -- as the result of a barrage of interest after his death -- with $10,000. Neither totals include any due publishing royalties and all are for U.S. activity only.
Compare that with the money that artists make from other digital channels. Digital album download sales generated sales of at least $200,000 for 13 artists, led by Jackson with $800,000, while another 26 sold $100,000 or more. Three acts pulled in more than $1 million in digital track sales for the year, led by Lady Gaga, with 33 making more than $100,000 from digital single sales.
Even tethered subscription downloads -- tracks downloaded from services like Rhapsody that must have their licenses renewed monthly -- showed better numbers. Nickelback, Jackson and Taylor Swift each made about $500,000 from such services, leading a field of 26 acts that earned in excess of $100,000."
Source: Billboard/Reuters, 26th February 2010

Spotify has more than 7m users in Europe

"Spotify has more than 7m users around Europe, 250,000 of whom pay for the service. Of those, “pretty much all” are subscribers to its £9.99/€9.99 ad-free service, which also allows smartphone owners to access its internet-based library of songs."
Source: Daniel Ek, co-founder of Spotify, speaking at the Financial Times Digital Media & Broadcasting Conference, reported by the Financial Times, 2nd March 2010

31% of the videos on YouTube that are embedded on other platforms are music videos

Click to enlarge

Source: Inside YouTube videos, by sysomos, February 2010.
sysomos analysed 2.5m YouTube videos to produce the report. This only deals with videos embedded on to sites like Blogger.

FarmVille players exchanged 690m virtual Valentines gifts in February 2010

"Game players can also exchange special virtual presents for the holiday -- in essence, small pictures of flowers or heart-shaped boxes. FarmVille users have given one another 690 million valentines since the promotion began Monday, according to Zynga Game Network Inc., the game's maker."
Source: Zynga Game Network, reported by LA Times, 13th February 2010

The internet is the third most popular news source in America

"The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get their daily news, according to a new survey conducted jointly by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The internet is now the third most-popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio. Getting news online fits into a broad pattern of news consumption by Americans; six in ten (59%) get news from a combination of online and offline sources on a typical day."
Source: Understanding the Participary News Consumer, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 1st March 2010