Facebook has become the second most popular website in the US according to Web analytics research by Compete.
The social media giant moved up one spot in the rankings pipping Yahoo for monthly usage in the United States. Internet juggernaut Google managed to maintain its strangle-hold on the number one spot but some of the statistics coming out of the study will no doubt have them looking over their shoulder.
Compete reported that Facebook had 133 million unique visitors in January 2010, ahead of Yahoo who had 132 million. Google’s web dominance was evident as they recorded a staggering 147.8 million unique users. I also must mention that while Twitter only had 21.79 million it’s rapid growth will surely be causing some concern at the top.
The question now is whether or not Facebook can mount a serious challenge for the top spot? Don’t be ridiculous, right? Not possible? Well actually, if you look at Facebook’s growth trajectory, it may not be out of the question.
Interestingly, Facebook does trump Google in one of the findings and it does it by some margin. Compete revealed that when it comes to the amount of time people actually spend online, Facebook is king. The website held a whopping 11.6% of all time spent online compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google.
A Neilsen study conducted in December has returned some very interesting statistics on the world’s social media usage. Apparently, it is not the Americans or the British spending the most time on sites like Facebook and Twitter, believe it or not, that title belongs to the Australians.
The global comparison study revealed that despite all the sunny weather and beautiful beaches, Australians on average spend 6 hours and 52 minutes each month on social media websites—some distance in front of the United States and the United Kingdom who spend 6 hours and 9 minutes and 6 hours and 7 minutes respectively on these sites.
Here’s the full list (h:m:s):
Australia – 6:52:28
United States -6:09:13
United Kingdom – 6:07:54
Italy – 6:00:07
Spain – 5:30:55
Brazil – 4:33:10
Germany – 4:11:45
France – 4:04:39
Switzerland – 3:54:34
Japan – 2:50:21
Doesn’t make sense, right? How can Australian’s who have such a major outdoor culture be ahead of these other countries? Well, being Australian and a social media frequenter myself, I think I can come up with a few reasons why.
Firstly, I think the biggest reason for their heavy usage is due to the fact that Australians love to travel. It’s pretty much tradition to fly off somewhere as soon as you finish your education. Actually, Australians will take advantage of any chance to jump on a plane and an interesting little statistic is that around 5% of the Australian population is abroad right now as we speak. Anyway, in the words of Andrew Weiner, “social media is to world travelling as steamed lobster is to hot drawn butter”. It simply is the best way to stay connected and share photos while you are overseas and Australians are making the most of it.
Some other reasons are Australia’s geographical isolation, its mateship culture and, I hate to say it, its laziness. Some people have also mentioned that it’s too hot to go outside while others like andymurd believe Australia’s internet speed is to blame. He writes, “Maybe Australians spend so much time on social networking sites because our internet is so slow – we’re just waiting for the page to load”.
If you want some more reasons, Ross Dawson on his blog has come up with a rather comprehensive discussion on the subject and it is definitely worth a read.
Another equally compelling statistic that came out of the Neilsen study was that social media traffic worldwide had surged 82% over the past two years. The global average of time logged onto social media has jumped to 5 and a half hours—that’s two and a half hours longer compared to the same statistic two years ago. Nielsen also reported that there are now 300 million social media users worldwide and Twitter was the fastest growing social media network.
Very interesting indeed. No doubt these statistics will have digital marketers across the world drooling all over their keyboards.
Facebook announced the top 15 status trends of 2009 at the end of last year and while there were quite a few obvious inclusions in the list, there were also some interesting ones. The study was based on the top trending words Facebook people used in their status updates. Facebook labelled it ‘memology’, the study of how “memes”, or new ideas and trends, are spreading on Facebook.
Facebook says:
Status updates on Facebook help people understand their friends and the people around them–how they’re feeling, what they’re doing and what they’re thinking. In the United States alone, people on Facebook are sharing hundreds of millions of words every day, thousands per second, in status updates. When taken as a whole, these words offer a unique barometer into the issues, world events and thoughts that are connecting people.
While you would have expected the usual suspects in ‘family’, ‘I’, ‘movies’, ’sport’ and ‘religion’ to be in there—stock-standard material for updates, right? It is also no surprise, after its boom year, that social media terms ranked right up there either. The one that sticks out for me is ‘yard’ at 13. I mean, where has this come from?
Facebook blogged, “Have all the hipsters turned to yard work as the latest fad? Probably not. A more likely explanation is that hipsters’ moms and dads are also on Facebook, and these folks have yards that require some tending”.
Mums and dads talking about their yards? Yeah right, I didn’t buy it for one second. So I did a bit of research and it seems I’m not alone in my scepticism. Howard Yeend at puremango.co.uk believes that it’s some kind of ploy by Facebook to lure “older people” to join up and buy apps.
“A cynic might suggest that facebook is trying to make themselves look more appealing to the more mature adult population who will be happy to spend their cash in a facebook appstore which I have no doubt is on the horizon for FB,” he says.
Hmmm? Interesting idea.
Another theory is that Farmville is to blame. Perhaps people are simply talking about their Farmville yard? Of the three theories, I’m going to go with this one. Though, if anyone has any other ideas, please share.
Anyway, it made for an interesting read and the by-month graphs are pretty sweet also. Notice the spike in FML (F**K MY LIFE) during exam period?
I was joking with some friends last week about going retro on communication for a week. No mobile phone, no internet. Just the house phone and me. Fortunately for me, my job depends on being connected, and there’s no way I can be on the internet and not do personal stuff (on my own time, of course). This got me and my friends joking about how we never left the house when we were waiting for a phone call back in high school. We’d sweat over sisters and brothers ‘tying up the line’ and making it impossible for us to speak with our boyfriends. Those were the days.
Flash forward 25 years. Communication has changed to the point that we are starting to rely less and less on our phones – even if we can take multiple calls at once from anywhere in the world. Today Mashable.com posted a piece called “What the Web of Tomorrow Will Look Like: 4 Big Trends to Watch’. As someone who loves anything tech, anything futuristic and tech and most things internet related (just not my complete inability to get OFF of it), I thought this would be very interesting for me to check out.
Once I read through it, I got to thinking. The one prediction that got my mind running was number 4. Social Media Will Be Its Largest Component. This lead me to start thinking of cool scifi movies I’ve seen and their predictions and which, if any, ever come true. There’s ‘Minority Report’. I think we’re getting to a point where we will be identified and personally addressed by ads as we walk through train stations, yep. BladeRunner has the video calling. Oh, by the way, I am certain there are many examples that pre-date the movies I’m mentioning, but that’s not the point. From there I got to Videodrome. Virtual/Reality.
Born was a kernel of a thought. What if Second Life had been introduced more recently. Let’s say two years ago. I wonder momentarily if it would have taken off but it was just seconds before its time. Per Wikipedia, the highest number of logged in avatars at the same time was in January ‘09 – a paltry 88,200. Comparatively, Facebook states that more than 35,000,000 FB users change their status daily. Having joined Second Life and logging a total of 3 hours on it, in toto, I can say that I don’t think so. It’s a really cool application and my mind raced at the potential and possibilities. But, in the end it was too hefty for me. Facebook, on the other hand, has got me hook, line and sinker. What I would like to see, and here I am going to make a prediction of my own that this will in fact happen, is a merging of a Second Life type of application with Facebook, or the development of something like it by Facebook. How many hours do your friends (and you, admit it) spend on Gangster Wars, or Farmville, or CafeWorld. To me it seems a natural progression. So, you heard it here first, folks. Too bad I don’t get paid for correct predictions.
What disappointed me about the forecast? That there wasn’t a feature that locks you out of your own devices under certain circumstances. I’m saying that if you are too drunk to be out in public, you are too drunk to be on Skype, IM, or even email. Of course, leave it to Google to have ‘Mail Goggles’. A tiny lab add-on that allows you to indicate after what time of night and on what days you will be required to take a short math test in order to send your mail. You can indicate how difficult the test is meant to be. I found it more annoying than useful, but to be truthful on more than occasion I had to complete the test several times before I could send the email. They should have a ‘maximum attempts’ setting in there, too. These seem like such simple, yet important, features that should be included on any device that can access the web.
There have been a lot of faith-restoring stories coming out of the social media world of late. Last week I wrote about the Facebook campaign that has helped save the life of young British student Philip Pain who fell seven-stories in Mexico and was in desperate need of blood. This week I want to acknowledge the huge effort made by social networking pages to help the people of Haiti.
Only minutes after the devastating earthquake floored the tiny Caribbean nation last Tuesday, the online world was mobilised and ready to help in any way it could.
One of the organisations leading the way was The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) who have now raised over £25 million after their appeal was announced on Twitter on last Wednesday.
The DEC has utilised Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube over the past week and their Chief Executive, Brendan Gormley, has publicly praised the significant role these social media sites have had in their campaign.
Mr. Gormley said, “Social networking has proven itself as a valuable addition to the fundraising machine. I’m thrilled that we have been able to quickly communicate and engage the UK public, who have in turn responded with tremendous generosity to help the people of Haiti who so urgently need our help.
“Their donations mean our member agencies can continue to source and deliver the emergency supplies needed like safe water, shelter, medicine and food. We hope people will continue to give their support so that more emergency aid can be added to what will be a massive humanitarian effort.”
DEC reported on Facebook that Flickr has been used to host images from the DEC’s member agencies, with 34,000 views of the DEC account on Friday, while a video of the DEC broadcast appeal has attracted nearly 4,000 views on YouTube.
Not only has social media been an outstanding tool to stimulate aid and increase donations, it has also played a vital role in spreading news and remarkably, locating victims.
“This is the first example we’ve seen where that sense of global community has been expressed in action, for example using social media technology to get the story out faster, to locate victims, and to give instantaneous donations,” said James Norrie, a media professor at RTS’s School of IT Management. “That’s an amazing use of a social media tool.”
The events in Haiti, while both shocking and saddening, have reinforced social media’s undoubted ability for social good.
I think Tom Brown, writing for The Burlington Free Press, captured it well when he wrote, “I’ve heard critics of social media say that users of communication tools such as Twitter and Facebook only want to talk to, and about, themselves and their friends. The earthquake in Haiti might help change the minds of some of those critics”.
“When people can respond that quickly and in such numbers to help their fellow man, then there certainly is hope”.
To make a donation to the DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal visit www.dec.org.uk or call 0370 60 60 900, donate over the counter at any post office or high street bank, send a cheque made payable to ‘DEC Haiti Earthquake Appeal’ to ‘PO Box 999, London, EC3A 3AA’ or text GIVE to 70077 to donate £5. £5 goes to DEC. You pay £5 plus your standard network SMS rate.
The family of a young British student who fell from a seventh-floor balcony in Mexico have praised the Facebook campaign that has kept their son alive.
Philip Pain, 20, was rushed to hospital on New Years Day suffering from two broken legs, a broken lower back and crushed internal organs. With doctors fearing his rare O-negative blood type would leave them without enough blood to save him, Philip’s family and friends at home in Bexleyheath, Kent, launched a Facebook campaign to call on anyone who shared Philip’s blood-type to donate blood.
The Facebook campaign which now has over 13, 000 members has gathered enough blood to stabilise Philip and doctors believe without it he would not have survived. There is a chance a part of Philip’s foot may have to be amputated, but doctors have almost entirely ruled out any brain damage. While there is still some way to go, Philip’s condition is improving and his family have expressed their gratitude to everyone who has helped out.
Philip’s sister Stephanie Pain told KentOnline: “It’s been really overwhelming. People are tracking his progress who have never met him or any of the family. It’s very encouraging.”
“It has been fantastic that complete strangers are walking into hospital to give up their blood but we need it to continue,” she wrote on Facebook. “Without the blood that has reached Phil so far, he would not be alive as we speak. He is still in an induced coma but fingers crossed he can be weaned out of this next week. This is a dangerous time for him I have been warned so please keep praying.”
Philip’s father Neil Pain posted on Facebook: “I would like to thank all of you personally for the kind words and the proactive action that some of you have been able to offer.”
Something I came across today on mashable about Facebook and their new privacy settings seemed a good add on to my earlier post ‘P-R-I-V-A-C-E-E’. I’m on the fence about the privacy issue, sort of. But, while there are 6,453 settings already within FB, why not just give people all the options they want for privacy. It seems to me that not being able to hide some of your actions on your wall will only A) force people to work while at work, B) force people to be a lot less friendly (I wish Facebook were actually called ‘Friendster’. It’s too bad the name was already in use) and accept less friend requests to keep their privacy C) Chase away those hold outs who you’ve been trying to convince to join for the last two years. The gap between ‘those who will join one day’ and ‘those who will NEVER, not until hell freezes over’ grows wider when they hear you talking about the last scrap you got into with a friend or at work over something you posted on FB that you thought they couldn’t see.
As for me? Meh. But I purposefully chose the image for this post because I guess you could say that FB is staying true to their slogan. Talk about being ambivalent, eh?
So, Rage Against The Machine has snatched UK’s beloved Christmas number one spot from X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.
When Jon and Tracy Morter organised a Facebook group last month their sole aim was to end the monopoly Simon Cowell and his X-Factor buddies had on the coveted UK Christmas single. What it turned out to be was something slightly bigger.
For those of you who somehow missed this story. Jon and Tracy Morter are a couple from Essex who started a Facebook group called “Rage Against The Machine For Christmas Number 1” because they were “fed up” with X-Factor’s four-year chart dominance during festive season.
“Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too … So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track ‘KILLING IN THE NAME’ from December 13th as a protest to the X Factor monotony?”. With these words, the battle began.
The idea was to encourage ‘real music’ fans to buy American rock-rappers Rage Against the Machine’s expletive-filled 1992 single “Killing in the Name Of” in the lead up to Christmas in order to beat McElderry’s “The Climb” to the Christmas number one spot.
So, why did they choose a 17 year-old song with the words “’F— YOU I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME” repeated 17 times over a more appropriately-angled, perhaps family-friendly, song for the festive period?
“It’s a rallying cry,” Mr Morter told NME.COM. “It’s been taken on by thousands in the group as a defiance to Simon Cowell’s ‘music machine’.”
“We picked a song that was controversial and has a strong message, and it just seems to have captured everyone’s imagination,” Mrs Morter added.
When he first heard of the campaign, Cowell labeled it as “stupid” and “cynical” and claimed it was specifically directed at him. In the end though, Cowell was gracious in defeat and called Jon and Tracy personally to congratulate them on a “well-deserved win” and a “great fight”.
A great fight it was.
In the beginning, no one really expected them to actually pull this thing off. How could two, relatively average, people from the small town of South Woodham Ferrers in Essex possibly defeat the multi-million dollar empire of music mogul Cowell?
The thing is, this little Facebook group struck a cord with people. It was time to make a stand. It was time stick it to ‘the man’.
What this campaign demonstrated was, by using social media as the medium the ‘little guy’ can make a real difference in this world. When enough people get together and are motivated to really give something a shake, anything is possible.
“The campaign behind RATM is interesting in its own right. If only because, once again, it demonstrates the power — if it can be called that — of the emergent internet radicalism,” writes Phil BC at A Very Public Sociologist.
“With very little time and cost, people are able to register their protest/opposition without the rigmarole of standing in the rain, listening to boring speeches, and beating off the desperate efforts of Trot paper sellers.”
Captain Jako at Frank Owen’s Paintbrush has a similar view on the campaign, “It once again points to the democratic potential of the internet. A grassroots effort coordinated over social networking sites and with zilch budget has proved more effective than the largely traditional marketing techniques used by wealthy industry bigwigs like Simon Cowell to get even more money out of UK consumers.”
Just five years ago, a campaign like Jon and Tracy Morter’s was almost impossible to achieve. However, in Facebook, Twitter and other social media websites, society now has a very real vehicle for change.
So, Rage Against The Machine has snatched UK’s beloved Christmas number one spot from X-Factor winner Joe McElderry.