10 things we learned in December

Dirk Singer therabbitagency.com / liesdamnedliesstatistics.com Twitter & Instagram - @dirktherabbit

Stats of the month - January 2012

It accounts for 20% of Internet time. Social networking sites now reach 82% of the world's online population (Comscore)

In fact, there are now more Facebook users worldwide than Buddhists (Rune Leth Andersen)

Social networking has become the worlds most popular online activity

"Social is running out of hours. Social is also running out of people" George Colony, Forrester Forrester says social media only slightly less popular than shopping and childcare

At the same time, social media may be reaching saturation point in many markets

As a result, the growth area for social remains emerging markets

According to Pew Research, out of 20 countries surveyed, the top three for the % of the total population on social media were Israel (53%), USA (50%) and the UK (50%) However, looking at the % of the Internet population on social media, the top three are :

Indonesia - 86%

Russia - 84%

Egypt - 82%

Facebook may have the numbers

But Twitter has shaped the news agenda

Twitter was the most cited social network in the media in 2011, beating Facebook in 10/12 months including Sept when Facebook's new features were launched (Highbeam Research)

The Internet is Britain's 2nd biggest news source

According to Oliver & Ohlbaum: 75% use the TV for news 68% the Internet 54% newspapers and 33% mobile

In the UK, 18% read a printed national newspaper less due to social media use. In Australia the figure is 21% and in the US it is 15% (Ofcom)

Social media continues to chip away at traditional media use

51% of 18-24 year olds in the UK, 53% in the US, 61% in France and 61% in Italy use social channels for breaking news (Ofcom)

Younger and female users of social media use it as a prime news source

38% of Internet consumers have used a social network to recommend a TV programme

29% often discuss what they are watching on TV in realtime online (Motorola)

Social TV continues to grow in importance

Never mind how many Android vs iPhone handsets are sold: 61% of European non PC Internet traffic comes from Apple 'iDevices', while in the US 92% of mobile purchases were made via iPhones and iPads in Dec (Comscore / RichRelevance)

Apple dominates the mobile web

Instagram on track to becoming the world's biggest mobile social network, overtaking Foursquare (SocialFresh)

Credits
Images rich_w http://www.flickr.com/photos/rich_w/60183650/ alancleaver_2000 http://www.flickr.com/photos/alancleaver/2661425133/sizes/z/in/photostream/ fidzonflickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/fat_mufid/5416688197/ Jeroen Moes - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeroenmoes/4835592796/ Ed Yourdon - http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/3118063433/ Laughing Squid - http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/986542579/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/4187459827/ balleyne - http://www.flickr.com/photos/balleyne/2668834386/sizes/z/in/photostream/ Gary Thomson - http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyth123/475458112/ trekkyyandy - http://www.flickr.com/photos/trekkyandy/2167734846/ steveleenow - http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveleenow/4629518557/sizes/z/in/photostream/ ajstarks - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajstarks/3833576093/sizes/z/in/photostream/ elaws - http://www.flickr.com/photos/elaws/4491818299/sizes/z/in/photostream/

A post with links is up at http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com Last months stats presentation can be found at http://liesdamnedliesstatistics.com/2011/12/stats-of-the-month-december.html