This is no fad – latest social media stats support behavioral sea change

August 19th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

Most of us by now had seen the “Shift Happens” and its revised stats “Did you know” by educators Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod. Well Erik Qualman, the global VP of online marketing for EF Education, in Lucerne, Switzerland has created a new version called the “Social Media Revolution” and posted it on his blog Socialnomics.net

I find this interesting so wanted to share it here.

If you’re like me you were probably trying to write all these stats down to use in some future presentation. Well to save you some time, here they are:

1. By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

2. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web

3. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

4. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.

5. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia

6. Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)

7. comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

8. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction

9. 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

10. % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%

11. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females

12. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

13. 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

14. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

15. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…

16. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

17. Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English

18. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

19. 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily

20. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth

21. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour

22. Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0

23. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

24. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

25. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them

26. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations

27. Only 14% trust advertisements

28. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

29. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do

30. Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009

31. 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone

32. According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available

33. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.

34. In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media

35. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

36. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second

37. Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser

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Men and Women Brain Differences – The Nothing Box

August 9th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

A friend sent me this video of speaker and marriage relationship author Mark Gungor doing a fantastic job using humor to explain a key difference between how Men’s brains work differently than Woman’s brains. I think this is one of those cases where comedy sheds light on and makes fun of everyday situations that most of us can relate with and probably take too seriously. As I was watching this I was visualizing the various instances where I had experienced exactly what Mark was describing. I was laughing my ass off!

As I know many of my friends can also relate I thought I’d post the funny clip on my blog to share for your enjoyment. if you have your own nothing box story you want to share, add a comment for others to enjoy.

Enjoy.

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Brings a whole new meaning to “don’t tase me bro” – multiple tasers mounted on front of cop car

August 2nd, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

CrunchGear just posted a incredible multi-taser weapon. Click here to read the post.

I downloaded the brochure and saw this great picture of these tasers mounted on the front of a cop cars. From the looks of it, I think they could support at a minimum 12 tasers and probably could fit 36. I’d hate to be in a crowd shot by this, wow.

taser_copcar1_600w

taser_claymorestack

Pretty intimidating huh?

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Is Apple the Devil?

July 31st, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

appledevil3My favorite site TechCrunch just posted three letters from the FCC to Apple, AT&T and Google over Apple’s banning of Google Voice application from the app store and iPhone. There’s actually been quite a few stories covering the Google Voice rejection and over 30 news reports in the last hour about the FCC involvement. I think it’s funny that Google can play the poor underdog here.

Admittedly I am a big fan of Apple and own a number of their products, including the iPhone 3GS. So it’s very hard for me to say this but maybe Apple, that once shinning example of simple kicking ass by making better products by thinking through the entire user experience with, of and around products, has gone rotten (see my earlier post Rotten Apple here). How could that be? Is this simply an overzealous executive that made an unnecessary decision trying to prevent their “competitor” Google from gaining momentum with Google Voice? Does Apple have their own Google Voice app in the works? Regardless, I really don’t appreciate companies trying to control me or think they “own” me where they limit my access to products and services I choose to use. Whether it’s music, movies or apps, controlling marketshare by controlling distribution has got to end.

At anyrate, I had posted a comment on TechCrunch and I thought I would share it here as well. Here it is:

It will be interesting to see how the govt handles it. As much as I’m sure people would like to believe Michael Arrington initiated this FCC action, and no doubt he has tremendous influence, I suspect it was more likely from AT&T lobbyists being called to action because AT&T was getting tired of taking the consumer heat for an Apple decision. As I’ve said before, banning GV was 100% an Apple move. They have ALL the leverage with AT&T, not the other way around. Heck, if AT&T tried to tell Apple to do anything I’m sure Apple with laugh and tell them to go f&%k themselves.

What do you think?

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Stefani taking pictures with her new camera at the Giants game

July 29th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

Image posted by MobyPicture.com
- Posted using MobyPicture.com

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12 Hours Week Online or Multi-Tasking?

July 28th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

watchingTV_and_surfingNetForrester in their recently released report, titled “Consumer Behavior Online: A 2009 Deep Dive,” shows that overall time spent on the Internet has remained at 12 hours per week, same as last years report. They compare that with TV viewing consumption at 13 hours per week and seemingly unchanged since 2004.

The problem I have with such high level survey statements is they don’t tell the whole story. What’s missing and what I’d really like to see is a breakdown by the amount of solo time spent per activity and the amount of time spent multi-tasking. How much of the 12 hours online also included watching TV at the same time? How much was just online and how much was just TV? Did Forrester ask this question? Many, many people these days, including nearly everyone I speak with in tech circles, tell me that they’re multi-tasking on the Internet even when they are watching TV. For example, right now I am writing this blog post but I also have the SF Giants game on the TV. Do I claim this as TV time or Internet time or was their an option for both? That would be interesting to know.forrester3_610x394

Also, the chart clearly shows a decline in reading newspapers, magazines and radio but doesn’t tell us if those are some of the activities that people perform online instead. We hear all the news headlines, no one reads news papers or magazines anymore or no one listens to the radio any longer. They try to make it sound as if we are not reading anything about news events, but I argue that we are actually consuming MORE news and media than ever before. It’s just not in the traditional printed or broadcast form. With the ease of the Internet to get info on my schedule about things I’m interested TV, radio and print will never be able to match. It’s no surprise that people aren’t using the traditional forms of media anymore but don’t assume that means that people are not read or informed. I’d like to see user response to where they get their news these days.

I think TV is also understated. Most people don’t want to admit they consumer more than 12 hours a week :-)

Click here to get the full story from CNET News

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Rotten Apple?

July 28th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

Ad_apple_1984_2Just read the post on TechCrunch about Apple rejecting the google voice app for the iPhone. They have now pulled all the google voice apps from the app store, claim that google voice has “duplicate features that come with the iPhone”, which is against the Apple developer terms of use.

Now most people know I love Apple products. You simply can’t argue against the innovation that radiates out of Apple offices that completely change everything. The iPod ecosystem, the iPhone and its ecosystem the desktops and laptops…prety much the only one they haven’t nailed yet is Apple TV. There’s no doubt that Apple can enter a market and change it almost overnight.

Now there’s a number of things that Apple gets away with that should Microsoft try they would be blasted almost non-stop by the media. But this one pushes the line a bit far. People are speculating thatcapitalist-greed AT&T is behind this more, which sounds plausible given they also see Google voice as a threat. With Google Voice, consumers can get all their calls through a single number. Just add all your other numbers to Google Voice and then make your own rules for how your phones ring. It’s pretty cool and seemingly very helpful app. However, if you are AT&T you can see how this dis-intermediates them and puts the consumer touch point with Google. It’s pretty much the same thing as Google being the starting point for the web. All these companies spend millions to build a brand yet people remember Google; they found it on Google. I’m sure AT&T would prefer this would not happen.

But it’s also plausible that Apple found the app threatening as well and decided to thwart the app from gaining users on iPhones until Apple can add all the cool features from GV to it’s own app. I wouldn’t put it past them. Sometimes us Apple fans have to admit that Apple is capable of pulling such a move. They are afterall a for-profit company.

Click here to check out the full story on TechCrunch.

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Texting Truckers More Dangerous says NY Times

July 27th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

I just read an interesting article in the new york times about the increased danger of texting while driving. Avoid-texting-while-drivingThe Virginia Tech Transportation Institute compiled the research over an 18 month period. Their tests involved installing video cameras in truck cabs recording the drivers actions including the time drivers took their eyes from the road to send or receive texts.

This report seems to be getting picked up by local newscasts. I guess I can see the attraction for the news, we can all relate to this. But I question the risk rates as they seem to have defined them. If the test was simply looking at the amount of time it appeared the drivers eyes were not looking at the road then it’s missing other key data points such as traffic conditions.

No I’m not advocating people should text when they are driving. I’m simply pointing out the way the numbers are being manipulated. At any rate, it’s an interesting story. You can read it in full here-

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Coffee with foamed milk

July 26th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

Easy as Sunday morning…peets coffee with foamed milk, reading the news, all kids asleep – quiet house aahhh…:-) #sundaymornings
Image posted by MobyPicture.com
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Bing powering facebook search and adwords like ads

July 25th, 2009 by Robb Lewis 0 Comments »

When did this happen? look on the right, Bing web results and then sponsored listings a la google style. This should be a good lift for bing. Just think of all the user interest and behavior data they will get as well.

Here’s the screenshot.

facebookBing_700

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