Online stats firm comScore have been busy with their rulers, clicky counters and tape measures to bring us curious folks ‘the first comprehensive review of European Internet activity.’
Their cool-sounding ‘comScore World Metrix’ study reveals that Europeans *heart* the Internet, with an average of 122 million Europeans aged 15 or older being online during an average day in April 2007, compared to 114 million in the U.S.
Continue reading Study: U.K. Most Active Internet Users In Europe
More than a third of employees who keep personal blogs risk getting the boot from their job by posting information about their employer, workplace, or colleagues, according to new research.
In a YouGov report commissioned by human resources firm Croner, employees were asked if they were down with the whole blogging thang, and if they were, they were asked to detail what kind of information that they were sharing with the world.
Continue reading Blathering Work Bloggers Risk The Boot
Just when Microsoft was developing as bit of a confident man-about-town swagger about its rising search engine performance, a new report from Nielsen/NetRatings delivers a humbling slapdown in the goolies.
The figures, released yesterday, show that after gaining ground for a couple months, Microsoft lost a chunk of their search market share in April, while rivals Google and Yahoo enjoyed lengthy back-slapping sessions as traffic rose.
Continue reading Google Rampant: Microsoft Search Slips Up
We spotted an interesting ditty about Microsoft Research getting excited about an array of speakers that they hope will irradicate the need for headphone wearing.
Continue reading Personal Audio Space: Microsoft Research
A new study by Telephia and comScore compares mobile and PC-based Internet usage and shows a huge rise in people accessing the web from mobile devices.
In January 2007, 5.7 million Brits accessed the web using a mobile device, compared to the 30 million people age 15 or older who used a work or home PC to get online.
Continue reading Mobile Web Users Make Up A Fifth Of UK PC-Based Audience
Over a tenth of all websites are pornographic, a quarter of search engine requests are for naughty things and when it comes to hosting smut, the US leads the world by miles.
The figures, delivered in a clever seductive video (below) by Good Magazine reveals just how much pr0n dominates the web, with 12% of all websites containing top shelf material and 25% of all web searches being for porno.
Continue reading Porn: Over A Third Of All Internet Downloads
Online buying has become so commonplace in America that sales of everyday items like clothing and shoes have outstripped the more traditional ‘techie’ big sellers like computers and software.
A report by Shop.org (part of the National Retail Federation) estimated online clothing sales at around $18.3bn in 2006, ahead of the $17.2bn spent on computers in the same year.
Continue reading US Online Sales Continue To Soar
The BBC have been running three, weekly pieces reporting on the impact and progress of a four person UK family when starting to live their Digital- Lifestyles. So much so that they’ve got into Torrents already!
They been given a flat screen, Sky HD, Windows Media, Apple TV, Sono and the inevitable iPods (Apple must be rather chuffed). All of these bits have been linked together using a wireless network which is whizzing the data around for them.
Continue reading BBC Condone Torrent Downloads In Trial?
High speed mobile phones and new gadgets are set to send revenue from mobile entertainment services soaring over the next five years, according to market research firm Informa Telecoms & Media.
Boffins at Informa expect the market for delivering content and services on mobiles to rise from $89.3billion in 2006 to $150billion by 2011.
Mobile music – already the biggest earner – will continue to whip up the biggest wedge of wonga, although its market share is expected to dip from 40 per cent in 2006 to 36 per cent in 2011 in the face of newer consumer technologies like mobile TV and video service.
“Advanced mobile content and services have been slow to take off, but this should not be confused with the deepening relationship that we have with our mobile phones,” commented report author Daniel Winterbottom, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.
“Over time, users will warm to other data services as well. The mobile web is a prime example: WAP failed to take off when it was first launched, but five years on, more and more users have become comfortable with accessing news or other information on their mobile phones,” he added.
The analysts also predict that the market for mobile entertainment services, including games, gambling and naughty adult content, will more than double during the same period, increasing from $18.84 billion in 2006 to a bumper US$38.12 billion in 2011.
User-generated content is also expected to grow, with Informa predicting that revenue from user-generated services will hit $13.17 billion by 2011.
Full of enthusiasm for the future, Daniel Winterbottom enthused: “The arrival of the mobile web on the mobile handset over in 2007 and beyond will see users embracing the same content they take for granted on their PCs.
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Mobile phone users are increasingly getting jiggy with the wee buttons on their handset as new figures show mobile Internet access soaring.
According to the Mobile Data Association, UK mobile owners accessed the Internet nearly 16 million times throughout December 2006, adding up to a thumping rise of one million unique sessions over the previous month.
These latest figures mean that mobile users have accessed the web 45.6 million times in the past three months.
Although the figures suggest we’re rapidly turning into perma-connected, perambulating Internet fiends, Thomas Husson, a mobile analyst at Jupiter Research was quick to suggest that much of the recent increase could be down to Christmas gift-giving.
Ol’ Tommy also reckoned that mobile data was “far from being mainstream,” although he expected an increase in data use as more people got their grubby mitts on internet-capable mobile phones, backed by better user experiences, user education, and cheaper prices.
Ready to rustle up a risotto of facts was Nick Lane, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms and Media, who calculated that there’ll be 797.6 million mobile phone subscriptions worldwide capable of web browsing by the end of 2007 (that adds up to 25% of all mobile phones, fact fans).
“The continued advancement of handsets means people are beginning to spend more time familiarising themselves with new services,” Lane added.
News, sport and weather updates are currently the big hitters for mobile users, although recent surveys have shown an increasing demand for location-aware services like maps and local services.
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