Chinese microblogging platform Weibo has 250m users

"Chinese internet company Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) has announced in its Q3 2011 earnings call that users on its Weibo microblogging platform exceeded 227 mln as of the end of September and recently reached 250 mln. Investment in marketing and R&D for Weibo more than doubled compared to Q3 2010, and CEO and president Charles Chao said costs will continue to rise over the next few quarters as Sina invests further in the platform.
As of the end of September, average daily posts rose from 75 mln to 86 mln, up 15% YoY. Overall traffic to the platform rose 23% YoY."

Source:  China News, Via Marbridge Daily, 9th November 2011

Social media use by Fortune 500 companies - 62% use Twitter, 58% Facebook, and 23% have a blog

"A recent study from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth has found the adoption of social media usage among Fortune 500 companies has levelled off. Across multiple industries, usage of Twitter, Facebook and blogs in 2011 is level with or below that of 2010.
In 2010, 23 percent of Fortune 500 companies had a blog. In 2011, that figured remained unchanged at 23 percent. In 2010, 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a Twitter account. In 2011, 62 percent have an account. In 2010, 56 percent of Fortune 500 companies had a Facebook account. In 2011, 58 percent have an account."

Source:  Data from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, reported by Adrants, 2nd November 2011

Over 70m Americans accessed social sites or blogs via mobile in August 2011

"comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results of a study on mobile social media usage based on data from its comScore MobiLens service, which showed that 72.2 million Americans accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in August 2011, an increase of 37 percent in the past year. The study also provided new insights into how mobile users interact with social media, finding that more than half read a post from an organization, brand or event while on their mobile device.
“Social media is one of the most popular and fastest growing mobile activities, reaching nearly one third of all U.S. mobile users,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president for mobile. “This behavior is even more prevalent among smartphone owners with three in five accessing social media each month, highlighting the importance of apps and the enhanced functionality of smartphones to social media usage on mobile devices.”
In August 2011, more than 72.2 million people accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device, an increase of 37 percent from the previous year. Nearly 40 million U.S. mobile users, more than half of the mobile social media audience, access these sites almost every day, demonstrating the importance of this activity to people’s daily routines.
Research also indicated that although more people accessed these sites via their mobile browser, the social networking app audience grew five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience grew 24 percent to 42.3 million users in the past year, the mobile social networking app audience surged 126 percent to 38.5 million."

Source:  Press release from comScore, 20th October 2011

Social networks and blogs account for nearly a quarter of the time Americans spend online

"Highlights of Nielsen’s “State of the Media: The Social Media Report”
Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet
At over 53 billion total minutes during May 2011, Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other website
Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago
Nearly 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone
Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet
70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12 percent more likely than the average adult Internet user
Across a sample of 10 global markets, social networks and blogs are the top online destination in each country, accounting for the majority of time spent online and reaching at least 60 percent of active Internet users"
Source:  Data from Nielsen's 'State of the Media:  The Social Media Report', quoted on NielsenWire, 11th Septeber 2011
See the full report here

Wordpress powers nearly 150,000 of the world's top million websites

"This has been an exciting year for WordPress. We’ve grown to power 14.7% of the top million websites in the world, up from 8.5%, and the latest data show 22 out of every 100 new active domains in the US are running WordPress."

Source:  Blog post by Wordpress, 19th August 2011

72% of people active on Twitter daily publish blog posts at least once a month

"Who are Twitter users and why are they so important to your brand?
Of the users who are active on Twitter daily:
72% publish blog posts at least once a month
70% comment on others’ blog posts
61% write at least one product review a month
61% comment on news sites
56% write articles for third-party sites
53% post videos online
50% make contributions to wiki sites
48% share deals found through coupon forums
In essence: What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter."

Source:  Data from Exact Target, reported by The Next Web, 18th August 2011

Over 30,000 companies have a presence on Chinese microblogging site Sina

"Sina national sales manager Lee would like to say that there have been over 30,000 companies settled Sina microblogging, covering the automotive, financial, FMCG and other industries. Meanwhile reporter learned, Sina Bo Enterprise has begun testing a part of different sizes in different industries have begun to try to use Enterprise Edition Sina microblogging marketing.
Since August 2009 Sina microblogging has been released, has attracted industry-wide attention and discussion. And microblogging (weibo.com) rapid growth, let it become the most influential Internet portal, to bring the marketing effect of increasing, gradually changing the depth of marketing."
Source:  Sina News, 8th July 2011, translated through Google Translate

Chinese mobile microblog Yidong Weibo has 66m registered users

"Hang Guoqiang, head of China Mobile's mobile internet base and general manager of Guangdong Mobile's data division operations center, recently disclosed that as of May 2011, registered users of the operator's Yidong Weibo ("Mobile Microblog," formerly 139 Shuike) microblogging platform reached 65.85 mln, with monthly active users reaching 14.8 mln, and daily postings reaching 2 mln."

Source:  Sohu IT, via Marbridge Daily, 4th July 2011

There are more than 20m Tumblr blogs

"According to their respective websites, 4-year-old microblogging platform Tumblr now hosts more blogs than 8-year-old WordPress.com.
In January, Tumblr had more than 7 million individual blogs. At the time of this writing, the total blog ticker on its site read about three times that at 20,873,182 — beating out WordPress.com’s current count by about 85,000 blogs."

Source:  Mashable, 15th June 2011

The web in 60 seconds

Infographic by- Shanghai Web Designers

Source & full data: Go-Gulf.com, June 2011. Sadly the individual stats aren't sourced

Stats on bog posts, tweets and Foursquare checkins after the death of Osama bin Laden

"In less than 12 hours since the tweeting began we saw almost 40,000 blog post and news articles and an astounding 2.2 million tweets all talking about Osama Bin Laden. As well, while no surprise that people in the US were talking the most about this event a look at our geo-location map shows us that people all over the world were tweeting about the news.
Some other interesting things that I noticed was that people were making jokes about Foursquare leading to the finding of Bin Laden. As time went on, people started started using Foursquare to check into places associated with the death of Bin Laden. Some people were checking in to the location where Bin Laden was found, while others were checking in to a “Post Osama Bin Laden World”.
By 10am(EST) this morning I was able to find 11,570 tweets that made reference to Foursquare and Bin Laden or were check-in’s tweeted out that were related to Bin Laden."
Source:  Sysomos blog, 2nd May, 2011

Tencent's microblog has 160m registered users

"During the annual conference recently held in Beijing by Chinese internet giant Tencent's online advertising arm, Tencent Mind, Tencent VP Sun Zhonghuai announced that as of March 31, Tencent Microblog had 160 mln registered users and 93 mln monthly active users, with more than 1 bln updates posted each month. More than 10 mln users are following twelve or more verified celebrity accounts on the service. More than 20,000 web and desktop applications hook into the Tencent Microblog API, a figure growing by more than 1,000 per day, and Tencent has partnered with 8,000 websites - and an additional 300 per week - for the service. More than 3,500 advertisers have signed on for the service, with more than 40 corporate marketing campaigns currently active on Tencent Microblog."

Source:  BiaNews, reported by Marbridge Daily, 4th May 2011

The demographics of British 'Mummy Bloggers'

"At the end of 2010, we surveyed 317 BMB members and developed a clearer picture of this fast-growing, dynamic blogging community which not only puts paid to some of the stereotypes but reveals why mum blogging is one of the most defined and inflential blogging tribes in the UK.
The survey reveals:
- Contrary to the image of all mum bloggers as not engaged in the world of work, 84% of respondents had a career before they started blogging and 68% still have a job or run their own business.
- Social networking is a cornerstone of their blogging life. They mostly define blogging as a hobby (82%) but it entails spending more than 7 hours a week on social media. (96% use Facebook and 81% use Twitter.) Compare that with the 2 to 3 hours they spend on traditional media each week, including newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.
- BMB bloggers mostly identify as being middle class (67%) and the majority are aged 30-39 years (55%) or 40-49 (30%).
- Far from being an “old trend”, mum blogging continues to gain steam - something we see in the number of new members joining BMB every week. Thirteen percent have been blogging for fewer than three months, 26% have been blogging for up to a year, and 34% have been blogging for 1 to 2 years. More than a quarter, or 27%, have been blogging for three years or more.
What we blog about
Unsurprisingly, parenting and children rank highest on topics to blog about. But lifestyle (71%), food (46%)  and travel (32%) are hot topics as well.
Mum bloggers are also looking to the future by interacting with brands - one of the ways that blogging is becoming sustainable.
More than half of respondents do reviews and 31% more want to. Most bloggers are open to working with brands, if the situation is right: 55% are interested in advertiser and sponsor relationships and 35% would consider it.

Source:  Research conducted by, and published in The Britmums Blog, 11th April 2011

The Cheezeburger network bought Know Your Meme for 'a seven figure sum'

"In a deal that combines some of the Internet’s most loved memes with the definitive site chronicling them, the Cheezburger Network has acquired Rocketboom’s Know Your Meme. The acquisition, first reported by Tubefilter and confirmed by Rocketboom and Cheezburger, was reportedly valued in the low seven digits — though neither party would publicly comment on the price.
Know Your Meme was created in 2007 as a complement to videos Rocketboom was creating at the time. The site included a wiki designed to curate all the memes that were hitting the Internet, as well as a blog to chronicle all the latest meme news. But the most famous part of the project was probably the long-running Know Your Meme web show, which provided easy-to-understand video companions to many of the Internet’s most (in)famous memes."

Source:  GigaOM, 28th March 2011

"Mommy Blog" Dooce.com generates an estimated $30,000 - $50,000 per month in revenue

"She [Heather Armstrong] is one of the few bloggers who wield that kind of clout. Typically, there are 100,000 visitors daily to her site, Dooce.com, where she writes about her kids, her husband, her pets, her treatment for depression and her life as a liberal ex-Mormon living in Utah. As she points out, a sizable number also follow her on Twitter (in the year and a half since she threatened Maytag, she has added a half-million more). She is the only blogger on the latest Forbes list of the Most Influential Women in Media, coming in at No. 26, which is 25 slots behind Oprah, but just one slot behind Tina Brown. Her site brings in an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 a month or more — and that’s not even counting the revenue from her two books, healthy speaking fees and the contracts she signed to promote Verizon and appear on HGTV. She won’t confirm her income (“We’re a privately held company and don’t reveal our financials”). But the sales rep for Federated Media, the agency that sells ads for Dooce, calls Armstrong “one of our most successful bloggers,” then notes a few beats later in our conversation that “our most successful bloggers can gross $1 million.”"
Source:  New York Times, 23rd February 2011