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Facebook And Twitter Growth Booming

The popularity of Facebook continues to increase with the site accounting for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 155 social networking websites in September 2009, according to a new analysis from Hitwise.

The 58 percent was the highest among all social networking sites, as U.S. visits to Facebook increased 194 percent in September 2009 compared with September 2008. MySpace received the second-highest market share of U.S. visits for the month, with 30 percent.

Tagged attracted 2.38 percent of visits in September, the third largest amount. Twitter had the largest gain in market share of visits among the top five visited websites, increasing a booming 1,170 percent compare to September 2008. U.S. visits to social networking sites increased 62 percent in September compared to the previous year.

MySpace had the highest average time spent among the top five most visited social networking sites, with 25 minutes and 56 seconds, although it was a decrease of 12 percent compared with September 2008.

Facebook had the largest growth in average time spent among the top five sites, increasing 23 percent in September to 23 minutes. Tagged saw an increase of 8 percent in time spent. Over all time spent on social networking sites decreased 20 percent year-over-year.

Broken down by demographics visitors to MySpace and Facebook between the ages of 18 and 34 still lead, as 32.27 percent and 26.96 percent of U.S. visits, respectively, came from those age groups in September.

For Facebook, visitors who are 55 and older increased 108 percent in September year-over-year while visitors from that age group to MySpace increased 26 percent.

Facebook Sees Big Growth In Search

In August 2009, Americans conducted more than 13.9 billion searches, with Google accounting for 64.6 percent of the search market, according to a new report from comScore.

Microsoft sites captured 9.3 percent of search share, a 0.4 percentage point gain compared to July.

Yahoo sites accounted for 19.3 percent of the search market, remaining unchanged month-over-month. Ask grabbed 3.9 percent of the search market and also remained unchanged over the previous month, followed by AOL with 3 percent.

The number of searches Americans conducted in August was up 3 percent from July. Google sites accounted for 9 billion searches, followed by Yahoo sites (2.7 billion), Microsoft sites (1.3 billion), Ask (541 million) and AOL (415 million).

In the August analysis of the top properties where search activity is observed, Google sites led the search market with 13 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo sites with 2.8 billion queries.

Microsoft sites ranked third with more than 1.3 billion searches, up 6 percent from July, followed by craigslist with 682 million searches. Facebook experienced the largest growth of the top ten expanded search properties with a 20 percent increase in query volume to 324 million searches.

Facebook Mobile Hits 65 Million Users

Facebook has announced it now has more than 65 million users who access the site via mobile devices.

The growth rate is impressive, Facebook says eight months ago it had 20 million users accessing the site via mobile.

Facebook has two mobile sites, one which works on any mobile browser and one that is designed specially for smartphones. The sites are available in more than 60 languages.

When it comes to mobile applications Facebook says on its blog “applications can be found on an increasing number of mobile phones; many come pre-installed while others can be downloaded from the Internet. The most recent Facebook mobile applications include major updates for Apple’s iPhone and Nokia’s N97 and 5800.”

The company says users will start seeing Facebook Connect on more mobile sites.

“Soon, you’ll see prompts for Facebook Connect on mobile sites and applications and have the opportunity to take your Facebook profile information, friends and privacy preferences to your favorite mobile applications, as well.”

Online Gambling Founder Pleads Guilty

Gary Kaplan, founder of BetOnSports.com, an offshore illegal gambling business plead guilty today in federal court to charges of conspiracy and violating the Wire Wager Act.

As part of the plea Kaplan will forfeit more than $43 million to U.S. officials. Kaplan had the money transferred from a Swiss bank account via wire to a U.S. District court band account a week prior to his guilty plea. Kaplan will be sentenced up to 51 months in prison.

BetOnSports was highly successful and attracted a large number of U.S. customers. By 2004, the BetOnSports organization’s principal base of operations in Costa Rica employed approximately 1,700 people. During the year ended Jan. 31, 2004, BetOnSports had close to 1 million registered customers, accepted over 10 million sports bets in a cumulative gross amount that exceeded one billion dollars.

In mid-2004, Kaplan made a successful public offering of the stock of BetOnSports on the London Alternative Investment Market that netted him over $100,000,000. Those funds eventually found their way into various Isle of Jersey trusts, which invested the funds in Swiss bank accounts.

“Gary Kaplan made millions of dollars by making it too easy for people to gamble away their hard earned money without having to leave their homes,” said John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI in St. Louis.

“Today’s guilty plea should have a lasting effect because Kaplan was not only the founder of BetOnSports, he was also one of the pioneers of illegal online gambling.”

Interactive TV Watch and Tweet, Check out Facebook

Verizon Wireless is forging the way in interactive TV experiences, adding an element of sociability to the TV viewing experience. FiOS TV, Verizon’s fiber optic television service that reaches over two million viewers, now offers a whole new level of viewing that involves downloading widgets—essentially programs for your TV. These widgets will include tools that enable users to Tweet about what they are watching, update their Facebook status, and check out feeds from friends.

The Facebook and Twitter widgets are merely one part of what Verizon Communications dubs a “Widget Bazaar,” a whole collection of programs that offer interaction, information, and other tools that are different from what you would normally expect when you are channel surfing. Think apps for your TV.

Widgets are nothing new for Fios TV. First, they were simple mini-programs that allowed viewers to check the weather or see a news headline marquee. The idea of expanding these widgets to provide interaction came when the widget territory grew to cover popular TV shows, local viewing, and other real-time events.

The Facebook and Twitter widgets will, no doubt, be among the most popular of Fios’s Widget Bazaar. However, they are still in a their infantile stages. In fact, the Twitter widget is more helpful as a Twitter reader than an actually tweet tool. If you want to tweet about what you’re watching, you better bring your laptop or mobile phone when you watch TV. As viewers tweet about a particular program or channel, tweets feed into the split screen, giving you a running commentary as you watch. Currently, the Twitter feed displays tweets from anyone on Twitter, not your specific network.

The Facebook widget functions in a different way. Users may still watch programs and simultaneously access Facebook using the split screen function, but the Facebook interface does allow users to update their status, only to announce what they’re watching on TV. The most useful aspect of the Facebook widget is the ability to view photos and other information from friends’ accounts.

Where does one draw the line between PC and TV? Verizon’s vice president of video solutions, Shawn Strickland explained, “We are not trying to re-create the PC experience on the TV. We’re trying to enhance the TV viewing experience. After all, you get on Facebook to interact, but you watch TV to just veg, right? “Viewers don’t want to take time out from their TV,” he went on to clarify, “but we are trying to bring these social-networking applications to the mass market in a way that enhances their TV experience.” Verizon is trying to preserve the purpose of the TV, but add to it the fun and interactive nature of social networking.

Sony, IODA Partner On Digital Music Network

Sony Music Entertainment has announced it has entered into a partnership with IODA, a digital distributor of independent music.

As part of the deal Sony has made a strategic investment in IODA. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Sony’s own independent distribution subsidiary RED and IODA will build on their existing technologies and increase the scope of sales and promotional opportunities that each currently offers.

“Sony Music is committed to offering independent labels and distributors the most compelling package of distribution services in the industry,” said Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment.

“IODA has proven it has the expertise and ability to lead the independent market with groundbreaking digital solutions.”

Six year – old IODA has nearly two million songs that are licensed to more than 400 digital storefronts globally. The company also distributes independent film and video for over 2000 titles. IODA’S retail partner network includes major digital music services like iTunes, Amazon MP3 and MySpace Music.

Facebook Goes Twitter With a Real-time Comment Widget

In a move that looks and smells strangely like Twitter’s status feeds, Facebook has launched a new widget that may actually be better than Twitter’s status feeds. The new tool, the Live Stream Box, is intended for installation on any website, but particularly sites which are broadcasting a major event in real-time. According to Facebook’s Developer site, “The Live Stream Box works best when you are running a real-time event, like live streaming video for concerts, speeches, or webcasts, live Web chats, webinars, mass-multiplayer games, and more.” The Live Stream Box enables Facebook users to log in, post comments, check out friend’s comments about the event—all without leaving the website of the event that they are watching.

Facebook ran a successful test run of the program during Barack Obama’s inauguration. As Facebook’s Tom Whitnah blogged, “It was a significant moment for Facebook Platform. We realized how powerful it was to see what your friends were saying, not just on Facebook, but right in context on CNN.com.” And now that Facebook has seen how successful the program has been not only for a presidential inauguration, but also for a ball game, and an awards event, it’s time to roll it out to the general public.

The new widget is easy to use for website owners (check out Facebook’s Developer’s site to find out how to install it) and for Facebook users alike (just log in using Facebook Connect). Any input that users enter into the Live Stream Box will automatically show up as their Facebook status, and be shared with friends. Friends can then follow the link to the Live Stream Box themselves, or “like” what has been written.

Facebook’s Live Stream Box may just be a well-placed blow at a Twitter strategy, and by employing the widget on popular events, Facebook has defeinitely gained a huge advantage in real-time social networking.

U.S. Ad Spending Sees Q1 Drop

Overall U.S. advertising for the first quarter 2009 was down 12 percent compared to the first quarter of 2008, according to a new report from Nielsen.

Preliminary figures show that U.S. ad expenditures declined $3.8 billion to a total spend of $27.9 billion in the first quarter.

All measured media showed negative growth in this challenging economy, ranging from Spanish-Language Cable TV (-1.1%) to local Sunday supplements (-37.7%).

“These first quarter results will hardly come as a surprise to an advertising industry that’s struggling just like many other areas of the American economy,” said Annie Touliatos, VP of Sales Development for Monitor-Plus, Nielsen’s ad tracking service.

“Now more than ever it’s important for buyers and sellers to adjust to the changing competitive landscape by carefully analyzing the wide range of advertising intelligence that Nielsen can offer.”

Television remains the dominant medium for advertisers, accounting for two-thirds of all ad dollars. Network TV, the largest media category with $5.76 billion in ad dollars in the first quarter, declined 4.8 percent. Spanish-Language Cable TV fared best, falling only 1.1 percent, while syndication was hit the hardest at -18.8 percent. One positive area was African-American television (a subset of network, cable, sundicated and local), which grew a healthy 7.9 percent.

Online Ad Revenue Hits $5.5 Billion

In a challenging economic environment that has hit other media sectors with greater force, Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. were at $5.5 billion for the first quarter of 2009, according to the numbers released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The figures represent a 5 percent decline over the same period in 2008.

“Interactive advertising has taken its rightful place as a fixture on marketing plans across sectors, which means we aren’t immune to broader economic trends,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB.

“Nevertheless consumers are spending more and more time with interactive media. For this, and other reasons, interactive media continues to gain share of marketing spend. We’re confident that growth will resume as the U.S. economic climate improves. Interactive advertising is the most accountable way to reach consumers-and in this economy, digital media will be a core component of any successful marketing campaign.”

David Silverman, PwC Assurance partner, echoed the observation that interactive advertising has been less affected by economic conditions that other media.

“Current economic conditions are clearly challenging,” Silverman said. “Nonetheless, interactive media continues to consume a larger piece of the overall advertising pie.”

According to April data from comScore, AOL’s Platform-A remains the top ad network, reaching nearly 176.5 million U.S. Internet users, or 91.5 percent of the total audience, followed by Yahoo Network (167.1 million).

New ad network Fox Audience Network ranked sixth, reaching 149.2 million people. Several ad networks in the top 25 achieved double-digit growth during the past year, led by Turn Inc. (up 121 percent), CPX Interactive (up 88 percent) and 24/7 Real Media (up 48 percent).

Report: Smartphone Market Share And Mobile Web Usage

Mobile advertising platform, AdMob has released a report that compares smartphone market share to mobile Web usage and found that smartphones accounted for nearly 3 times more usage than their relative market share in April 2009.

The report also compared usage of mobile Web sites usage of HTML sites on mobile devices, finding that relative usage of both is highest on Apple and Android devices.

The emergence of devices such as the iPhone and HTC Dream (G1) that offer compelling Internet experiences has generated discussion of which Web consumers will use on mobile- mobile Web sites or HTML sites. The report compares requests in AdMob’s network to Net Applications.com Global Market Share Statistics for April 2009 to determine that iPhone and Android users both over index in their share of usage on both mobile Web and HTML websites.

Other highlights from the April 2009 AdMob Mobile Metrics Report:

While Gartner estimated global smartphone sales represented 12 percent of total device sales in 2008, 35 percent of AdMob’s worldwide ad requests in April 2009 came from smartphones. This means that smartphones accounted for nearly 3 times more usage than their relative market share.

The iPhone OS had 8 percent of the smartphone market, but generated 43 percent of mobile Web requests and 65 percent of HTML usage.

The Android OS share of the smartphone market was less than 1 percent, but generated 3 percent of mobile Web requests and 9 percent of HTML usage.

The Symbian OS had 52 percent of the smartphone market, but generated only 36 percent of mobile Web usage and 7 percent of HTML usage.

Usage of mobile Web sites greatly out paces usage of HTML sites on smartphones running the Symbian and RIM Operating System (OS).

24 percent of US requests were made over a Wi-Fi network. The top five Wi-Fi devices in terms of usage were the iPhone, iPod touch, Sony PSP, HTC Dream (G1), and HTC Dash.