"If you haven’t been surfing through Bilzzard’s pet store in the past two days, you might have missed one of the new pets for WoW: Celestial Steed.
This horse has generated $2 million in a little over 4 hours and people were still lining up to get it. These figures are just based on the first four hours since the Celestial Steed was released, but Bilzzard certainly earned a lot more from selling this horse. You will have to spend $25 if you want to get it and the upgrade is purely visual because mounts don’t improve the ability of the character."
Source: GossipGamers, 17th April 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has sold 20m copies
"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has passed another milestone. In a pre-Electronic Entertainment Expo analysts event tonight, Activision announced that the Infinity Ward-developed first-person shooter has now sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Activision believes first-person shooter fans have an insatiable appetite for quality examples of the genre.
If that game's success wasn't staggering enough, CEO Bobby Kotick told analysts that the next title, Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, could possibly do even better. Kotick noted multiple times that the Call of Duty series has grown more successful with each new installment and said that preorders for Black Ops are tracking higher right now than those of Modern Warfare 2 when that game was this far out from release. Black Ops is set for a November 9 debut."
Source: Gamespot, 15th June 2010
Activision believes first-person shooter fans have an insatiable appetite for quality examples of the genre.
If that game's success wasn't staggering enough, CEO Bobby Kotick told analysts that the next title, Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops, could possibly do even better. Kotick noted multiple times that the Call of Duty series has grown more successful with each new installment and said that preorders for Black Ops are tracking higher right now than those of Modern Warfare 2 when that game was this far out from release. Black Ops is set for a November 9 debut."
Source: Gamespot, 15th June 2010
Four of the six biggest levels of internet usage occurred at the 2010 World Cup
The highest recorded internet usage of 20.7m visitors to news sites per minute was on 24th June 2010, when Denmark played Japan, and Cameroon played the Netherlands, while the longest running tennis game was taking place at Wimbledon.
The top 6 events are shown below
Source: Akamai Net Usage Index, retrieved 14th July 2010
From their notes:
"The highest peaks since inception of the Net Usage Index for News (August 18, 2005), based on total visitors per minutes. The following data ranks the top peaks, and the corresponding events that were taking place in the world at the time."
The top 6 events are shown below
Click to enlarge
Source: Akamai Net Usage Index, retrieved 14th July 2010
From their notes:
"The highest peaks since inception of the Net Usage Index for News (August 18, 2005), based on total visitors per minutes. The following data ranks the top peaks, and the corresponding events that were taking place in the world at the time."
Digital albums account for 27.4% of American music purchases
"According to data released July 7 by Nielsen SoundScan, the sales tracking system for music, published by Billboard magazine, digital albums now account for 27.4% of music purchases, up from 21.5% at the same point last year.
The report indicated that physical album sales continued to decline while digital album sales grew during the first six months of 2010. This confirms indications in a June survey by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, "Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010-2014."
Pricewaterhouse Cooper projects that digital sales will overtake physical purchases next year. Consumers' use of digital platforms is ahead of industry estimates, hitting all segments of entertainment and media, including music, movies and videogames.
[...]
The research indicates that by 2014 digital purchases are projected to rise to $17 billion, doubling from $8.1 billion in 2009. Physical sales will dip $10.9 billion by 2014, a decline of 66% from 2005.
Overall, SoundScan states that album sales (physical and digital) are down 11% so far this year, with 154 million sold. Physical albums declined 17.7%, while digital albums rose 13.7%.
Interestingly, vinyl LPs have increased by 9.1% (1.3 million sold)."
Source: Data from Nielsen Soundscan, reported by The Independent, 8th July 2010
The report indicated that physical album sales continued to decline while digital album sales grew during the first six months of 2010. This confirms indications in a June survey by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, "Entertainment and Media Outlook for 2010-2014."
Pricewaterhouse Cooper projects that digital sales will overtake physical purchases next year. Consumers' use of digital platforms is ahead of industry estimates, hitting all segments of entertainment and media, including music, movies and videogames.
[...]
The research indicates that by 2014 digital purchases are projected to rise to $17 billion, doubling from $8.1 billion in 2009. Physical sales will dip $10.9 billion by 2014, a decline of 66% from 2005.
Overall, SoundScan states that album sales (physical and digital) are down 11% so far this year, with 154 million sold. Physical albums declined 17.7%, while digital albums rose 13.7%.
Interestingly, vinyl LPs have increased by 9.1% (1.3 million sold)."
Source: Data from Nielsen Soundscan, reported by The Independent, 8th July 2010
The Daily Mirror sold an estimated 334,000 copies as a result of a Prince album giveaway
"Last weekend's Prince freebie helped the Daily Mirror sell an extra 334,000 copies compared to the previous weekend. Sister Scottish title Daily Record, which also bundled copies of new Prince album '20Ten' in with their paper, saw a sales uplift of 45,000.
Well, I'm assuming it was the free Prince CD that helped the two tabloids sell more copies. Although I heard somewhere that the internet is dead, so perhaps it's a sign of one time web surfers returning to print.
We don't actually know what either title's total sales were on 10 Jul or 3 Jul (ie with and without the Prince), but Billboard did some maths based on both papers' most recent ABC circulation figures and reckons the Prince CD helped the Mirror score a 27% increase in paper sales, while the Record only had a 14% increase. It's thought that when the Mail On Sunday gave away Prince album 'Planet Earth' in 2007 they experienced an uplift similar to the Mirror."
Source: CMU Music News, 14th July 2010
Well, I'm assuming it was the free Prince CD that helped the two tabloids sell more copies. Although I heard somewhere that the internet is dead, so perhaps it's a sign of one time web surfers returning to print.
We don't actually know what either title's total sales were on 10 Jul or 3 Jul (ie with and without the Prince), but Billboard did some maths based on both papers' most recent ABC circulation figures and reckons the Prince CD helped the Mirror score a 27% increase in paper sales, while the Record only had a 14% increase. It's thought that when the Mail On Sunday gave away Prince album 'Planet Earth' in 2007 they experienced an uplift similar to the Mirror."
Source: CMU Music News, 14th July 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
YouTube mobile receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day
"YouTube consumption on mobile devices has also grown considerably: playbacks were up 160% in 2009 over the previous year. And we’re excited to announce that YouTube Mobile now receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day. This is roughly the number of daily playbacks that YouTube.com was streaming when we joined forces with Google in 2006."
Source: YouTube blog, 7th July 2010
Source: YouTube blog, 7th July 2010
Foursquare has 1.9m users, with 2 men for every woman
"As of today, Foursquare has just over 1.9 Million users. Gowalla has around 340,000.
- At its current pace, Foursquare will surpass 2 Million users within a week.
- Foursquare is adding almost 10x as many new users per day as Gowalla and, despite a significantly larger base, has a daily percentage growth rate that is 75% higher than Gowalla’s.
- Currently, Foursquare has about 5.6 Million venues and Gowalla has 1.4 Million venues.
- 1 in 3 venues on Foursquare have been checked into only once or never. That number is 1 in 4 on Gowalla.
- The most popular venue name is “Home,” followed by national fast food chains like “McDonald’s” and “Burger King”
- On Foursquare, men outnumber women almost 2-to-1. Exact gender breakouts are not available for Gowalla, but the most popular first names suggest a similar distribution."
Source: Article by Robert J. Moore, the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, using his company's data (rather than official data from the companies concerned), Techcrunch, 7th July 2010
- At its current pace, Foursquare will surpass 2 Million users within a week.
- Foursquare is adding almost 10x as many new users per day as Gowalla and, despite a significantly larger base, has a daily percentage growth rate that is 75% higher than Gowalla’s.
- Currently, Foursquare has about 5.6 Million venues and Gowalla has 1.4 Million venues.
- 1 in 3 venues on Foursquare have been checked into only once or never. That number is 1 in 4 on Gowalla.
- The most popular venue name is “Home,” followed by national fast food chains like “McDonald’s” and “Burger King”
- On Foursquare, men outnumber women almost 2-to-1. Exact gender breakouts are not available for Gowalla, but the most popular first names suggest a similar distribution."
Source: Article by Robert J. Moore, the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics, using his company's data (rather than official data from the companies concerned), Techcrunch, 7th July 2010
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