Posts Tagged ‘networking’

Social Media, Web 2.0 and Internet Stats

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

I came across a terrific post from Adam Singer listing some mind-blowing statistics. These numbers tell a very powerful story about the power of Social Media.

As our digital and physical lives blur further, the internet has become the information hub where people spend a majority of their time learning, playing and communicating with others globally.

Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of just how staggering the numbers are of people collaborating, researching, and interacting on the web.

Google search stats:

1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) - approximate number of unique URLs in Google’s index (source)

2,000,000,000 (two billion) – very rough number of Google searches daily (source)

$110,000,000 – approximately amount of money lost by Google annually due to the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button (source)

24,400 – number of people employed by Google (December, 2008)

68,000,000 – the average number of times people Googled the word Google each month for the last year (source: keyword tool)

$39.96 - the average cost per click for the phrase “consolidation of school loans” in AdWords (source: keyword tool)

1,430,000 - the number of Google results for “Robert Scoble”

136,000 - the number of Google results for “Admiral Ackbar”

Wikipedia stats

2,695,205 - the number of articles in English on Wikipedia

684,000,000 – the number of visitors to Wikipedia in the last year

75,000 - the number of active contributors to Wikipedia

10,000,000 – the number of total articles in Wikipedia in all languages

260 – the number of languages articles have been written in on Wikipedia

(source)

YouTube stats

70,000,000 – number of total videos on YouTube (March 2008)

200,000 – number of video publishers on YouTube (March 2008)

100,000,000 – number of YouTube videos viewed per day (this stat from 2006 is the most recent I could locate)

112,486,327 – number of views the most viewed video on YouTube has (January, 2009)

2 minutes 46.17 seconds – average length of video

412.3 years – length in time it would take to view all content on YouTube (March 2008)

26.57 - average age of uploader

13 hours – amount of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

US $1.65 billion in Google stock – amount Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for in October 2006

$1,000,000 – YouTube’s estimated bandwidth costs per day

(sources here, here and here)

Blogosphere stats

133,000,000 – number of blogs indexed by Technorati since 2002

346,000,000 – number of people globally who read blogs (comScore March 2008)

900,000 – average number of blog posts in a 24 hour period

1,750,000 – number of RSS subscribers to TechCrunch, the most popular Technology blog (January 2009)

77% - percentage of active Internet users who read blogs

55% – percentage of the blogosphere that drinks more than 2 cups of coffee per day (source)

81 - number of languages represented in the blogosphere

59% – percentage of bloggers who have been blogging for at least 2 years

source

Twitter stats

1,111,991,000 – number of Tweets to date (see an up to the minute count here)

3,000,000 – number of Tweets/day(March 2008) (from TechCrunch)

165,414 - number of followers of the most popular Twitter user (@BarackObama) – but he’s not active

86,078 – number of followers of the most active Twitter user (@kevinrose)

63% – percentage of Twitter users that are male (from Time)

Facebook stats

200,000,000 – number of active users

100,000,000 - number of users who log on to Facebook at least once each day

170 - number of countries/territories that use Facebook

35 - number of different languages used on Facebook

2,600,000,000 – number of minutes global users in aggregate spend on Facebook daily

100 – number of friends the average user has

700,000,000 – number of photos added to Facebook monthly

52,000 – number of applications currently available on Facebook

140 - number of new applications added per day

source

Digg stats

236,000,000 – number of visitors attracted annually by 2008 (according to a Compete survey)

56% - percentage of Digg’s frontpage content allegedly controlled by top 100 users

124,340 - number of stories MrBabyMan, the number one user, has Dugg (see updated number here)

612 - number of stories from Cracked.com that have made page 1 of Digg (see all 41 pages of them here)

36,925 – number of Diggs the most popular story in the last 365 days has received (see story here)

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Posted in Social Networking, The Right Site | 1 Comment »

Xbox just might be cool now

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I’m a huge Wii fan. Never owned an Xbox… never cared to. But their new product announcement just might be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen - and launching the way we live, play and work - in to lightspeed.

Now, the video is pretty darn cool, but how it actually works might be totally different. And I have to admit - it’s just slightly creepy. But still cool. Did I mention that?

Nonetheless, this viral video is at the top of the AdAge charts for the week of June 8, 2009.

You can view more on Project Natal from XBOX’s website.

by Abbey Klaassen
Published: June 18, 2009
(whole article here)

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — This week’s No. 1 spot belongs to XBox’s Project Natal video, whose 1,090% growth over last week is a record for the chart.

What drove the increased views? First of all, the body- and facial-recognition technology, which lets you control a video game without a controller, is pretty compelling — so it’s not surprising the demo has been worth its share of pass-along. But Project Natal also got an enthusiastic endorsement from Jimmy Fallon when he featured it on his show June 10. Mr. Fallon, “The Office’s” John Krasinski and “True Blood’s” Stephen Moyer played “Ricochet” and “Burnout Paradise.”

Meanwhile, the “Beer and Porn” video from Bud Light made its debut in the No. 6 spot. The video has been out since February but for some reason took off last week. Visible Measures, which tracks the video traffic for the chart, did a little investigating. Wrote Matt Cutler, VP-marketing and analytics: “We do not believe this ad ever saw TV air time and seems to have been quietly leaked back in February on the web. Subsequent copies were uploaded intermittently ever since, but the campaign appears to have taken off at the end of May when it was covered by Time magazine.”

More evidence that offline mentions can drive online views?

In second place, falling 50% of the views since the week before, is the new Carl’s Jr. Portabello Mushroom Burger. I still love this video though. Truly defines viral messaging!

Breaking in to the countdown, a new BudLight video at #6. Um, hysterical.

And super fun, at #7 and up 11%, the TMobile Dance. Think, Evolution of Dance, times 300.

Have I ever mentioned that I have the coolest job, ever? I love getting to share all the great things that are Social with you guys :) Thanks!

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Posted in Social Networking | 1 Comment »

Bare Adequecy

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Jeff Shore gets it right again. Here’s a great new blog from his site, JeffShore.com. I love that he’s offering comments on his articles! So make sure you stop over to his site and share the love :)

Several years ago I read a book by Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi entitled, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. I found it to be a fascinating work on the meeting place of productivity and happiness. A major premise of the book is that there are a whole lot of people who are productive but not happy, and vice versa.

One particular point the author made has stuck with me; to this day I think of it often. He stated that one aspect of finding the blend between success and happiness is a trait that he calls “Bare Adequacy”. Paraphrasing, this would suggest that I’m good at what I do, but not that good.

I’ve translated this concept into my own language as follows:

I’m good at what I do, and people appreciate that. But I am one step away from being irrelevant and tired to the people I work with, and so I must constantly push to renew, re-create, and re-invent. The strategies I teach must be fresh, and that is a constant challenge. I am adequate, but barely. I had best make sure I am striving to stay ahead of failure.

 

This concept applies to everyone, but let me speak in particular to the veterans out there. If you’ve lost the joy of a business you have always loved, it might stem from a lack of a sense of ‘bare adequacy’. It might mean that you have reached a plateau and you need to push yourself to entirely new levels.

Let’s look at it this way: you might be completely adequate for a strong market, but that would make you an incomplete sales professional. Perhaps you need to re-think your sense of adequacy for a tough market, where the buyer psychology changes dramatically, where macro-economic shifts effect every single transaction, and where the sale is made in the tiniest corners of the sales process.

Figure it out, and you’ll change the world!

Read the whole article here.

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Posted in Sales Training | 1 Comment »

T-minus 2 weeks!

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

The countdown is on! We close in just 2 short weeks!

I haven’t been posting very much lately because the house has been going through some preliminary walk-throughs and punch lists (that’s where the builder comes in and takes notes about everything that they see that needs to be fixed before we do our walkthrough on July 2). It’s all pretty boring from the outside - but the last main step was just completed! We got our blinds and appliances in last week. So that was very exciting!

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So we’re finalizing everything with the underwritter, Ken, and our mortgage consultant, Roxanne. We’re getting the last set of conditions approved - which is mainly a bunch of paperwork I need to send them for any “conditions” they would like to clarify. It sounds a lot like, “hey, I see in March you had an inquiry on your credit. Can you write a letter about what that is and if it resulted in a new debt?” It’s seriously major brain damage - but must be done! They also look at all of our bank statements and require paperwork on any non-paycheck deposits. And it’s not just a copy of the cleared deposit - we need to prove where it came from, why we received it and all that good stuff. I can honestly say that I cannot WAIT until this part is finished and the loan is approved from the final underwritter.

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Meanwhile, there’s a lot in the works with our Closing Coordinator, Kim. She sent us our first closing letter that gives us our dates for walkthroughs and closing. Right now, we have a preliminary walkthrough on July 2 at the new house to show the builder everything that we see that needs fixed (another punch list). Then, we return on July 8 to make sure it was all completed to our satisfaction, before traveling downtown to the closing. We decided to take the whole day off so we could go back to the house and just sit on the floor.

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I can’t believe we’re going to own our own home!

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We also met with a friend on Saturday who helped us pick out paint colors and where they should go. The first week after we close will be a lot of painting parties! I’m very excited to show it off :)

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Posted in The Journey | 2 Comments »

Amazing mobile app lets you see the world ‘through online eyes’

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

Written on June 17, 2009 – 2:12 pm
Martin Bryant, Co-founder, Social Media Café Manchester

//

LayarWhile the tech blogosphere goes iPhone 3.0 crazy today, here’s a reminder that there’s a lot to be excited about elsewhere in the mobile world too.

Layar is a new ‘Augmented Reality Browser’ for Android phones. Forget everything you’re used to about searching the internet, Layar throws that all away. By holding your phone in front of you and looking through its camera lens you can actually see the world ‘through the eyes of the internet’.

Imagine you want to know which houses in your area are for sale – just hold up your phone and Layar will point out which ones around you are on the market and how much they are. Phoning the estate agent is just a touch of the screen away.

Created by Dutch firm Sprxmobile, Layar offers a range of different ‘layers’ of information that can be displayed. This could be really useful for all sorts of applications from tourist guides to browsing shop stock without having to bother going inside.

Layar is due to launch today in the Netherlands on the Android App Store. Releases in other countries, including the UK, USA and Germany are planned for later in the year. Sprxmobile will be working with commercial partners in each country to ensure plenty of local data is available on launch.

This video shows just how exciting Augmented Reality in mobile devices can be.

link to video

link to article

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Posted in Social Networking | 1 Comment »

How to blackmail the best in the business!

Friday, April 17th, 2009

When I started this blog, the idea was to share valuable information on sales and marketing with other industry professionals - which has come to include marketing and sales directors, Realtors, entrepenuers and even homebuyers (who are becoming more saavy every day!). But who are we kidding, I need a little help getting the content that everyone wants to hear about!

And since I can’t find any good pictures for this post, I’m going to randomly post some YouTube videos that are really cool (trust me, this all has a point - namely, the power of social media!). Like this one, which is honestly the coolest thing ever, in my humble opinion.

I sent out a survey to many of our Realtors and got some really interesting responses!

So I wanted to share the survey results with everyone, and some planned topics that you’ll get to read about in the next week!

Since I consider one of my specialties to be social media, I asked a lot of questions about online habits so I could behaviorally target my demographic. I’m a big believer in researching demos to make sure you’re on target, and then analyzing results to give you measurable data. Social media may not cost much to execute, but I want to know I’m not wasting precious man-hours (and it’s pretty intensive at times!) on reaching a bunch of 12 year olds on Myspace.*

When it comes to Facebook, I was interested to learn that 65% of my respondants were using it specifically for their business. LinkedIn came in a close second with 60%. I was a little surprised to see Twitter down at 25% and YouTube at 16%… but I’ll work on them! For their personal lives, Facebook took the cake at 60%. Not surprisingly, Myspace came in at 0%. So why is that interesting? Well, I think it’s pretty interesting that more Realtors are using Facebook for their business and not personally.

Another interesting fact - 36% of respondants spend 4+ hours online each day (I’d be surprised, but I know I spend a lot more than 4 hours online!). 90% of these people hadn’t heard of my blog - but they all promised to go. So if anyone’s here from my survey - leave me a little comment!

So let’s talk about the things that they want to read about, and how I’m going to give them what they want!

Topics were pretty evenly split among new home sales training and topics, marketing topics, social networking topics, and my favorite - the journey of a first time homebuyer (hm, I swear I didn’t pay them to say that!). But the winner was…. financial and economic topics!

Hm. Now, that sounds pretty boring to me. But I promise to deliver with some exciting financial topics from the leading financial minds in our country (ok, or maybe someone a little more local that reads the Wall Street Journal).

My peeps (non-Realtors) had some different topics in mind - like interior design ideas, price and negotiation tips, why buy now and things like “closing costs and other technical definitions”. Only 17% of them actually wanted to hear about my journey - but it’s my blog, so I’ll do what I want.

So here’s what I have planned for this week:

  • Financial-ness (by special editors - fun financial people! No… really!)
  • The Price is Right (a blog by Jeff Kaizer about things you need to know about price)
  • Interior Design trends (with special guest editors from an awesome interiors company!)
  • Social Networking trends- How to use, and not use, Facebook

I welcome your suggestions to make this blog the best it can be! I’m not above groveling to get some of the best in our business to be a “Featured Speaker” on our blog (Uh, Jeff Shore… someone remembered that your favorite cookies are Oatmeal; and Meredith Oliver has an affection for the endless fries at Ruby Tuesdays. I’m still waiting on some dirt from Melinda Brody, but I’m resourceful).

This is going to be some exciting stuff. Maybe worth making you do a little Numa Numa dance?

*As an aside, Engle Homes Florida is not on Myspace, nor will I attempt to replicate the Numa Numa guy.

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Posted in Marketing, Social Networking | No Comments »

Reach 118 Million people… with dance?

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

Marketing professionals know the importance of social networking right now, but a lot of people still think social networking is just for the young.  I’m excited to address many of the misconceptions about web 2.0 sites and how it relates to marketing, but I’d like to start by specifically talking about YouTube and how online videos can be used to market, well, just about anything!

Viral videos are popping up all over the place. Most consumer products have special viral videos only marketed towards the online generation (it’s not really an age bracket or demographic, as much as it’s behavioral targeting). If you saw the recent Celebrity Apprentice, “All” challenged Donald Trump’s teams of celebrities (KOTU and ATHENA) to produce a Viral Video/ Online Commercial for their product. Although I really hated the KOTU team video, both videos captured the meaning of Viral video. In the end, neither won, but ATHENA’S video deserves another look for pure entertainment value…

Team ATHENA Video

Team ATHENA Video

And just because it’s so bad - here’s KOTU’s:

Team KOTU Video

Team KOTU Video

So what is a Viral video? From Wikipedia: “A viral video is a video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites. Viral videos are often humorous in nature.” YouTube is breeding ground for viral videos and some everyday ordinary people have become internet celebrities due to the wide-gained recognition from their internet video popularity.  Has anyone seen “Evolution of Dance“? This viral video has garnered nearly 118 million YouTube views and counting, making it the most viewed video in YouTube history and skyrocketing Judson Laipply (a motivational speaker, sales and marketing trainer, NBA half-time show entertainer… you name it) into internet stardom. But it didn’t stop there - Judson has since made appearances on everything from the Today Show to being featured in Rolling Stone magazine - and it all started on YouTube. His video also made way for a sequel… the “Evolution of Dance 2” which is at almost 5 million views since being uploaded to YouTube in Jan. 2009. If you haven’t seen his videos… you must. I could write an entire blog entry about him - maybe I will. :)

Judson Laipply and the Evolution of Dance

Judson Laipply and the Evolution of Dance

I’m the first to admit that I was the last one (it seemed) to jump on the YouTube bandwagon. I never owned a video camera, and I’m pretty camera shy myself (which is why I spend my spare time behind a camera as a photographer). But with our new strategies and budgets in this market, it became evident that I would have to start jumping out of my comfort zone and take hold of the phenomena that is YouTube.

Our new plan was to travel the state and video inventory homes and communities that were available and then mass-market them.  The approach to utilizing YouTube effectively is simple. Be funny. Quacky, nerdy, weird - it all works. So we went in as a little bit of a “Sonny and Cher” show… sidekicks….partners in crime. We had a slow start, but what seemed uncomfortable at first, got really funny in the end! We started video taping our travels across Alligator Alley, showing off our embarrassingly low-budget Cobalt rental car, and returning said-Colbalt to the airport. But it was the inventory and community videos in South West Florida that really got people talking!

Jeff sliding down a banister... and I'm not kidding!

Jeff sliding down a banister... and I'm not kidding!

View our Essign Inventory video here

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Here are some recommendations for being successful in viral videos and online video marketing:judson2

  1. Know your audience (a critical fault in the Celebrity Apprentice challenge)
  2. Don’t be afraid to stretch your limits and break some boundaries. Nothing is unusual in the world of viral videos!
  3. Make it amatuer. Professional videos belong on tv, not online.
  4. Get people talking. Activity breeds activity - so once word gets out about your video, it will keep spreading!

So moral of today’s lesson - even if you don’t think it’s for you, it’s time to start jumping on board, breaking out of your comfort zone, and becoming a Web 2.0 phenom!

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Posted in Marketing, Social Networking | 1 Comment »