Mobile Facebook, Twitter Growth Explodes

Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112% in the past year, while mobile Twitter access experienced a 347% jump, according to a new study from comScore.

Mobile Users Favor Facebook and Twitter over MySpace

In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from 11.8 million mobile users in January 2009. While only 4.7 million mobile users accessed Twitter from their mobile browser in January 2010, this represented 347% growth from 1.05 million mobile users in January 2009.

Meanwhile, mobile usage of MySpace dropped in the past year. In January 2010, 11.4 million mobile users accessed MySpace, a 7% decline from 12.3 million mobile users in January 2009.

Facebook’s mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009, three months earlier than the Facebook audience exceeded that of MySpace on the PC-based internet in May 2009. These figures do not include access of the social networking services by the nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications.

Mobile Social Networking Grows
In general, the popularity of mobile social networking is increasing. In January 2010, 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of this growth has been driven by smartphone owners, 30.8% of whom accessed social networking sites on their mobile browsers, up more than eight percentage points on the year. By comparison, just 6.8% of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.

Women, Middle-aged Do Most Social Networking
Women and people between 35 and 54 are most apt to perform social networking activities via mobile device, according to data from The Nielsen Company. A clear gender gap exists in social networking activity on mobile devices. In December 2009, Nielsen research indicates that women were responsible for 55% of mobile social networking activity, compared to 45% performed by men.

Kids Don’t Lead Mobile Social Networking Usage
Despite the stereotype of teens spending every waking moment on a mobile device, Nielsen data suggests their parents actually spend more time performing mobile web surfing. Only 7% of mobile social networking activity was represented by 13-to-17-year-olds and only 16% by 18-to-24-year-olds in December 2009.

The leaders in mobile social networking activity are 35-to-54-year-olds, who accounted for 36% of mobile social network usage in December 2009. Close behind them were 25-to-34-year-olds, who performed 34% of the month’s mobile social networking activity. Users ages 55 and up combined for the remaining 7%.

Boomers Slowly Warm to Mobile Web

Baby Boomers slowly adopting mobile web

Baby boomers are on the verge of adopting smartphones and the mobile Internet, and in the vanguard of this movement are younger boomers. But boomers’ mobile Internet adoption rates will be similar to their social media uptake—that is, slow. They must see the benefits before they sign on.

Back in 1995, boomers were the pioneers of mobile phone usage, exceeding or equaling other age groups’ uptake of the devices, according to the Pew Research Center. Ownership rates have now grown to more than 85% among boomers, the majority using feature phones. But only 55% consider their mobile phone a necessity.

US Baby Boomers who have a mobile phone

“Internet use will be the driving force behind boomers’ adoption of smartphones and the mobile Internet,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Boomers and Mobile Usage.” “They are avid Web users but no longer such early adopters.”

Boomers made up 30.6% of all mobile phone users in August 2009, according to comScore’s age breakout. However, they made up only 19.6% of all touch-screen users and 21.1% of smartphone users. Younger boomers (ages 45 to 54) were more likely than older boomers to use touch-screens, smartphones and any mobile phone.

Total US smart phone users

“Boomers are underrepresented among smartphone users but are becoming more interested in the devices,” said Ms. Phillips. “Smartphones are now well established in the marketplace, which should help to convince the portions of the boomer cohort that are not early adopters.

“The business aspect of smartphones should appeal to the many boomers who say they plan to continue working after retirement age,” Ms. Phillips said.

But price is a factor for many. As carriers reduce prices for phones as well as monthly data plans, more boomers will come on board.

2010 Looks Brighter for Digital Media

2010 looks brighter for digital media

The digital media industry should look toward this year with cautious optimism, according to comScore.

As part of its 2009 US Digital Year in Review, comScore highlighted a number of likely digital media trends for 2010. Although many companies sought opportunities in new markets during 2009, sustained increases in consumer demand will be necessary to drive continued growth in digital advertising.

Top Digital Media Trends for 2010

• Despite a significant drop-off in growth rates, e-commerce remains a relative bright spot for retailers. New buyers continue to enter the channel, and as average spending per buyer rebounds off its 2009 lows the ecommerce channel should return to healthy growth rates. The online media channel also continues to be an important driver of offline purchase behavior, so marketers in all industries need to retain a clear focus on having an online presence, where their consumers frequently begin the purchase process.
• Social networking and social media continue to drive much of the innovation occurring around the internet today. A critical challenge remains the ability to effectively harness the marketing intelligence inherent in the way people communicate and interact with one another through the digital medium and make it actionable. Even as new capabilities emerge that leverage the “social” value of the medium, this channel already delivers substantial reach for ad campaigns and despite low click-through rates, there is measurable view-through value from these ads.
• The U.S. search market saw significant innovation from the core engines in 2009, with Bing’s growth promising to make the market more competitive. The trends to watch in 2010 include increased integration of real-time (i.e., Twitter) and vertical-specific search results as the engines seek to both improve the user experience and move the consumer more efficiently down the decision funnel.
• Online video continues to capitalize on the continued increase in media fragmentation, consumer-generated content, and a rising generation of consumers very comfortable using their computers as primary or secondary entertainment devices. As this market has emerged, higher quality video and more seamless integration of video ads are emerging and adding value to the digital advertising market, to the benefit of both advertisers and publishers.
• The digital display advertising market is innovating on several fronts right now, including the emergence of new ad units that promote higher engagement, cutting edge ad targeting techniques, the development of niche audience ad networks, and the increasing popularity of online ad exchanges to buy and sell inventory. Each of these developments is contributing to the improved allocation and effectiveness of digital ad campaigns. Marketers must maintain a critical eye on the performance of their campaigns, in relation to how both digital media and traditional media components are performing.
• With so many new smartphone models reaching the market in 2009, this year promises a rapid increase in market penetration of these devices, which likely means a corresponding uptick in mobile web usage. As more consumers turn to their mobile devices for consuming content and managing their digital lives, there is significant opportunity for innovators to deliver new value to consumers in how they use these devices. The development of mobile applications across new platforms also presents new business opportunity and monetization potential for publishers and developers alike.

Online Video Viewing Accelerates

Video viewing increases in 2009

I’ve long been an advocate of using video as an engagement tool, video can increase the amount of time that a consumer stays on your site and that can convert into better rankings on the search engines, the longer a person stays on your site or page, the more importance search engines will give that page. So given my thoughts on this, new research from comScore has shown that Online video viewing accelerated in 2009, with 19% more people in the US viewing more videos for longer periods of time.

In December 2009, 86% of the total US online population, or 178 million people, viewed video content, compared to 150 million people in December 2008. Americans also viewed a significantly higher number of videos in 2009 compared to the prior year, due to both increased content consumption and a growing number of video ads being delivered. The average online viewer consumed 187 videos in December 2009, up 95% from 96 videos in December 2008.

US online video market

The number of videos viewed grew almost 150%, from 14.3 billion to 33.2 billion, while the duration of the average video viewed grew 28%, from 3.2 to 4.1 minutes.

Hulu Viewership Jumps in 2009
The past year saw Hulu continue its rapid ascent as one of the top video content providers, reflecting a broader shift toward consumption of more long-form, premium video content online and the increasing fragmentation of traditional TV viewing.

Hulu share increasing

In December 2009, Hulu viewers watched more than 1 billion streams for a combined 5.8 billion minutes (97 million hours), up 140% from approximately 2.3 billion combined minutes (38 million hours) in December 2008. The average Hulu viewer watched more than two hours of online video during the month.

Online Video Market Fragments

Top-ranked video site YouTube accounted for 26% of total time spent viewing video in December 2009. This was more time than viewers spent viewing video on the combined sites ranked numbers two to 25. However, the majority of online video, 52%, was consumed at sites outside the top 25, suggesting increased fragmentation of the online video market.

Total video viewing trends Feb 2010

Online Video Watchers Prefer Google Sites
Google Sites accounted for 13.2 billion videos, or almost 40% of total online videos viewed in December 2009, according to earlier comScore Video Metrix data. YouTube.com accounted for nearly 99% of all videos viewed at Google Sites. Hulu ranked second with more than 1 billion videos viewed, an all-time high for the property, representing 3% market share. Microsoft Sites ranked third with 561 million (1.7%), followed by Fox Interactive Media with 551 million (1.7%) and Yahoo! Sites with 539 million (1.6%).

Worldwide Online Search Market Grows 46%

The total worldwide online search market grew 46% in December 2009 compared to December 2008, according to the latest qSearch data from digital research firm comScore, Inc.

US, China Lead in Total Number of Searches

During December 2009, Internet users conducted 131.3 billion online searches, compared to 89.7 billion online searches in December 2008. The US led all countries in total online searches, conducting 22.8 billion. This represents 22% growth from 18.7 billion in December 2008.

China ranked second with 13.3 billion searches, a 13% increase from 11.8 billion a year earlier. Japan came in at number three, growing 48% from 6.2 billion to 9.2 billion searches, followed by the UK, which grew 35% from 4.6 billion to 6.2 billion searches.

Russia, France Lead in Search Growth

Russia experienced the highest percentage of online search growth during December 2009, shooting up 92% from 1.7 billion to 3.3 billion searches. Russia had the tenth-largest number of total searches for the month. Following Russia was France, which grew 61% from 3.4 to 5.4 billion searches. France had the seventh-highest monthly online search total.

Brazil ranked third in online search growth, increasing 53% from 2.4 billion to 3.8 billion searches, which placed it eighth in total number of online searches. Japan had the fourth-highest search growth percentage for December 2009.

Google Dominates Total Number of Searches

Google Sites was by far the most popular search property during December 2009, collecting 87.8 billion searches worldwide, a 58% increase from 55.6 billion in December 2008. Its closest competitor, Yahoo Sites, collected 9.4 billion searches worldwide, a 13% increase from December 2008. Rounding out the top five were Chinese search engine Baidu.com, growing 7% from 8 billion to 8.5 billion searches, Microsoft Sites, growing 70% from 2.4 billion to 4.1 billion searches, and eBay, growing 58% from 1.3 billion to 2.1 billion searches.

Yandex Leads Growth

Matching the explosive growth of online searches in its home country, Russian search engine Yandex had the highest growth of any search property during 2009, growing 91% from 992 million to 1.9 billion searches. Microsoft Sites came in with the second-highest growth percentage, followed by Google Sites. Social networking site Facebook.com had the fourth highest percentage of growth for the month, rising 54% from 1 billion to 1.6 billion searches. Ask Network followed with 43% growth, increasing from 1 billion to 1.5 billion searches. One search property, Alibaba.com Corporation, experienced negative growth, dropping 1% from 1.1 billion searches in December 2008 to 1 billion searches in December 2009.

US Search Behavior Matches Global Behavior

US internet users showed similar online search preferences during December 2009 as the global population did. According to previously released comScore qSearch data, Google Sites led the US search market pack in December with 65.7% of the searches conducted, or almost 9.7 billion of a total 14.7 billion US searches conducted on the most popular US search engines. Bing, the primary search property of Microsoft Sites, displayed impressive US growth during the month, increasing its query volume 6% from November 2009 to nearly 1.4 billion searches, almost 10% of the total.

Holiday Shopping Fuels Traffic Growth at Largest Online Retailers

More than 8 million Australians visited a Retail site in December 2009, representing a 3-percent increase versus year ago. The category was led by Apple.com Worldwide Sites with more than 3 million visitors, a 63-percent increase, fueled by continued growth at the Apple Store site which was visited by more than 1 million Australians. Amazon Sites followed as the second most visited retail destination with 2.5 million visitors, up 28 percent from the previous year. Coles Group Ltd., which includes Kmart.com.au, Target.com.au and Coles.com.au among other sites, ranked third with 1.3 million visitors (up 30 percent), followed by Woolworths Limited with 1.2 million visitors (up 48 percent).

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Top 10 Retail Subcategories

Computer Hardware ranked as the most-visited Retail subcategory in December with nearly 4 million visitors led by traffic to Apple sites. Comparison Shopping sites followed with 2.7 million visitors, up 16 percent from the previous year, as Web users sought product information and holiday deals. Shopping.com Sites led the Comparison Shopping category in visitation, with significant growth experienced at both GetPrice.com.au and MyShopping.com.au. Other subcategories to see substantial increases in visitation included Computer Software (up 46 percent), Apparel (up 41 percent), Department Stores (up 30 percent) and Consumer Electronics (up 28 percent).

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study on traffic to top Retail sites in Australia during the 2009 holiday season. The study found that three out of five Australians online visited a Retail site in December, as traffic to the category reached its highest volume of the year with more than 8 million visitors during the month.

“December continues to be the heaviest month for visitation to retail sites as the holiday shopping season reaches its pinnacle,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia-Pacific region. “The online channel is an increasingly important component of retailers’ holiday strategies with a growing number of consumers turning to the Web for comparison shopping and purchasing convenience.”

Per-Person Online Video Viewing Jumps 13%

YouTube

Total video streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were all up in December 2009, led by 13% growth in time per viewer, according to US online video viewing data from The Nielsen Company. The December 2009 Nielsen VideoCensus reveals that unique viewers of online video topped 137 million for the month, representing a 10.3% year-over-year increase. Total streams viewed totaled more than 10.7 billion, a nearly 12% increase over 2008. Approximately 78 streams per viewer were watched, a 1.4% increase over 2008.  Time per viewer increased 13.2% to 193.2 minutes, Nielsen said.

All of the metrics, however,  showed month-over-month declines vs. November 2009:

Top Ranked Video Streams

Top Online Brands for Videos Viewed

In its ranking of top online brands for video streams, Nielsen reported that Google’s YouTube – with more than 6.4 billion streams and 105 million unique viewers – continues to reign as the #1 brand in December 2009. Hulu, which has climbed into the #2 position, Yahoo, Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network and MSN/Windows Live/Bing round out the top five on the top 10 list:

Top Ranked Video Streams December

In a comparison with the Nielsen data, comScore Inc. – which uses a different methodology to measure online video viewing – recently reported that more than 170 million US internet users watched online video during November 2009, and a record high of nearly 31 billion videos were viewed during the month.

Google, Hulu, Viacom Digital and Microsoft topped the comScore list as the properties with the most videos viewed, according to the firm.

Social Media Influencing 28% of Holiday Shoppers

A couple of weeks ago during a webinar I conducted I mentioned the fact that social media sites or networks would be the most popular search engines over the holiday period, and some new research from ComScore has backed that up.

Nearly $16 billion has been spent during the first 36 days of the 2009 holiday shopping season (since Nov. 1), marking a 3% increase vs. the corresponding days last year, according to new data from comScore, Inc., which also found that 28% of US shoppers say social media has influenced their purchases this year.

The most recent week ending December 6, 2009 reached $4.6 billion in holiday spending, heavier than any individual spending week in 2008 but still below two individual weeks in 2007, comScore said.

Weekly Holiday Retail Sales Chart

The week began with strong weekday spending, led by $887 million on Cyber Monday. It ended on a softer note with negative year-over-year growth rates during the weekend.

Holiday Season travel retail spend

“After a strong beginning to the week, we saw growth rates decelerate over the weekend to put this past week of holiday shopping in line with our 3 percent growth forecast for the season,” said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. “We are anticipating heavy spending for the current week, making it an important determinant for how the holiday season as a whole will perform. Hopefully, we’’l see a return to the growth rates we observed during the earlier part of this past week and that the weekend softness was just a temporary hiccup.”

Social Media Influencing Holiday Purchases

In the comScore weekly holiday survey, comScore asks respondents about the influence of social media on their holiday shopping behavior. According to the most recent survey, conducted on Dec. 4-7, 2009, 28% of those who have begun their holiday shopping this season indicated that social media has influenced their purchases.

Of the types of specific social media that consumers say influenced holiday purchases, the most common:

Social Media Influence on US Holiday Shopping behavior

• Reading a consumer-generated product review (13% of respondents)
• Reading an expert product review (11 %)
• Following a fan page on Facebook to take advantage of special offers and deals (7%)
• Influence by a friend’s Facebook status update referring to a particular product (6%)
• Following a company on Twitter to take advantage of special offers and deals (5%)
• A friend’s “tweet” about a product influenced their purchase behavior (3%)

“Social media really appears to be emerging as an important marketing channel this holiday season,” added Fulgoni. “On the one hand, its emergence is being driven by increased consumer adoption of these technologies and the exponential growth in digital word-of-mouth that is occurring over this medium. On the other hand, having a social media marketing strategy makes sense for retailers in this environment because it’s cost-effective and shows an effort to get closer to one’s customers.”