Index of statistics

Based on the latest stats from M:Metrics, the iPhone is delivering on its hype, radically changing what people are doing with the mobile Web.

Check out some of these figures:

• The iPhone is already the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web, with 85 percent of iPhone users accessing news and information in the month of January.
• 30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users.
• 30.4 percent of iPhone owners accessed YouTube, compared to 1 percent of all mobile phone users.
• 36 percent used Google Maps, compared to 2.6 percent of all mobile users.
• Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average.
• Twenty percent of iPhone owners accessed Facebook, one of the first Web properties to customize its content for the iPhone, versus 1.5 percent of the total mobile market.

The iPhone offers a taste of the future; iPhone users are using the devices in all sorts of leading edge ways. It also shows how mobile users will use Internet media when they get capable devices and unlimited data plans.
“The iPhone has certainly delivered on its hype,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. “Beyond a doubt, this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video.”

“While the demographics of iPhone users are very similar to all smartphone owners, the iPhone is outpacing other smartphones in driving mobile content consumption by a significant margin,” said Donovan. “In addition to the attributes of the device itself, another important factor to consider is the fact that all iPhones on AT&T are attached to an unlimited data plan. Our data shows that once the fear of surprise data charges is eliminated, mobile content consumption increases dramatically, regardless of device.”

One-third of all Internet videos watched in the US were on YouTube, according to the latest research from comScore.

January 2008 data shows that YouTube.com accounted for one-third of the 9.8 billion videos viewed online in the U.S. during the month. The total number of videos viewed in January was down slightly from the more than 10.1 billion viewed during a record-breaking December 2007.

Top Five Internet Video Sites:

• Google Sites - 34.3% share of videos viewed. (YouTube.com accounted for more than 96 percent of all videos viewed at Google Sites.)
• Fox Interactive  - 6%
• Yahoo! Sites - 3.2%
• Microsoft Sites - 2%
• Viacom - 2%

Other notable findings from January 2008 include:

• More than three-quarters of the total U.S. Internet audience (75.7 percent) viewed online video.
• 78.5 million viewers watched 3.25 billion videos on YouTube.com (41.4 videos per viewer).
• 49.4 million viewers watched 534  million videos on MySpace.com (10.8 videos per viewer).
• The average online video duration was 2.9 minutes.
• The average online video viewer consumed 70 videos.

New research from comScore confirms one of the more important new media trends - that young people are abandoning newspapers for Internet media.

As a result, newspaper readership is getting smaller and older.

“That current generations are growing up getting their news online for free is an indicator that print circulations are likely to continue their decline,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore.

Younger News Consumers Less Likely to Read Print Newspapers

Heavy print newspaper readers show a strong skew towards older age segments, while the non-newspaper reader segments skew younger.

• Those age 65 and older are nearly 3 times more likely (index of 296) than average to read the print edition of newspapers 6 times per week.
• Those age 18-24 are 38 percent more likely than average to not read a print newspaper at all during a typical week.

A scandal has broken out over the fact that the most-viewed video of all time on YouTube, Evolution of Dance, has been beaten by a fan video for the song Music is My Hot Hot Sex.

A lot of people are crying foul - not just because the Hot Hot Sex video is so bad, but because YouTube’s stats suggest that many of the video’s views may have been generated by spambots.

Does Hot Hot Sex Really Belong On Top?

Waxy.org did the stats rundown.

“There’s still a possibility that this torrent of traffic is coming from a legitimate external source, but it seems increasingly unlikely,” they concluded. “It’s either a bug or some form of cheating.”

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick has a different view, suggesting that the clip is “a defining video for the current era online - the heady days and American flavored story of “well, golly look at that” user generated content are over.”

While Kirkpatrick acknowledges suspicions around the video’s ranking, he suggests that globalization may be a factor in the Hot Hot Sex video’s popularity.

“YouTube now gets a majority of its viewer ship from outside the U.S. so it only makes sense that the #1 video of all time isn’t from the U.S. There are now three of the 20 all time most viewed videos on YouTube with non-English titles,” notes Kirkpatrick. “Non-native English speakers and other languages are an essential part of US culture and English titled videos are of course viewed substantially outside of the US - but the growing internationalization of the site can’t help but increase the prominence of non-English videos. The victory of Hot Hot Sex is a strong signal of the global reach of YouTube.”

Jackson West at NewTeeVee offers a more skeptical take:

“After Andy Baio called ‘bulls**t’ on CANSEI DE DER SEX Music is My Hot Hot Sex, there’s been renewed interest in stats-gaming on YouTube,” notes Jackson. “The video is still online at 91,195,785 views and counting, but it’s no longer listed as the most viewed all time”

Is Google The Real Culprit Behind The YouTube Sex Scandal?

While these explanations are all plausible, there’s another, simpler explanation: Google may be responsible for the success of Hot Hot Sex.

Check out what Google brings up for “hot sex”:

If you’re at the top of number one search engine Google for “hot sex”, you’re going to get a hell of a lot of traffic.

Does Hot Hot Sex really beat The Evolution of Dance? I’m skeptical.

Videos after the jump. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Two thirds of all Americans are dissatisfied with the current state of journalism, and most now regard the Internet as their most important source of news, according to a new Zogby International survey.

The survey also found that while most Americans (70%) think journalism is important to the quality of life in their communities, two thirds (64%) are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

Other highlights of the research:

• Nearly half of respondents (48%) said their primary source of news and information is the Internet, an increase from 40% who said the same a year ago.
• 55% of those age 18 to 29 say they get most of their news and information online, compared to 35% of those age 65 and older.
• Overall, 29% said television is their main source of news, while fewer said they turn to radio (11%) and newspapers (10%) for most of their news and information.
• Just 7% of those age 18 to 29 said they get most of their news from newspapers, while more than twice as many (17%) of those age 65 and older list newspapers as their top source of news and information.
• Web sites are regarded as a more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets - 86% of Americans said Web sites were an important source of news, with more than half (56%) who view these sites as very important. Most also view television (77%), radio (74%), and newspapers (70%) as important sources of news, although fewer than say the same about blogs (38%).

The survey has clear implications for podcasting and new media - people are looking to the Internet for news and information, but may not be ready to trust new news sources. The onus is on new media sites to establish a track record and build that trust.

Overall, the survey finds the Internet not only outweighs television, radio, and newspapers as the most frequently used and important source for news and information, but Web sites were also cited as more trustworthy than more traditional media sources - nearly a third (32%) said Internet sites are their most trusted source for news and information, followed by newspapers (22%), television (21%) and radio (15%).

Podcast host Libsyn reports that they are updating their stats engine to address some ongoing issues with it and add new features:

We know stats accuracy is an ongoing issue and that libsyn users have had to exhibit a lot of patience and swallow a lot of frustration as we’ve worked through the problems over the years.

We took the first step of identifying and fixing the issues with the current libsyn.com stats (mainly, some episodes published after July 2007 not showing up in the system, or suddenly stop reporting downloads). We sifted through the code that processes the raw data into data we can use in the reports we provide to you, and believe we have identified the root of the problem, as well as the fix for it.

We’ve set up a test environment, applied this fix, and are now in the process of re-processing the raw data from Summer 2007 forward and verifying that this “fixed” data is accurate. Depending on how that verification goes, the reprocessing could be finished in as soon as 7 - 10 days.

We are working on a plan that will provide scalability, flexibility for us in terms of administrating the application, and will give us the ability to continue to store historical data indefinitely.

Libsyn note that, while they are reprocessing the older data, stats updates will happen less frequently.

Full details at the Libsyn blog.

U.S. Internet users watched Internet video a record times in December, according to the latest figures from comScore.

comScore speculates that some of the increase in viewing of Internet video can be attributed to stale television content as a result of the Writer’s strike.

Research Highlights:

• U.S. Internet users watched more than 10 billion videos online during the month, representing the single heaviest month for online video consumption since comScore initiated its tracking service.
• Google’s video sites saw substantial growth, accounting for nearly one out of every three videos viewed online.
• Nearly 141 million Americans viewed online video in December.
• Google’s video sites captured the largest online video audience with 79 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 43.9 million and Yahoo! Sites with 38.2 million.
• Online viewers watched an average of 3.4 hours (203 minutes) of online video during the month, representing a 34-percent gain since the beginning of 2007.
• The average video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average viewer watched 72 videos.

“December represented a considerably strong month for online video viewing,” said comScore’s Erin Hunter. “With the writer’s strike keeping new TV episodes from reaching the airwaves, viewers have been seeking alternatives for fresh content. It appears that online video is stepping in to help fill that void.”

The Nielsen Company today announced the launch of Nielsen On Demand Reporting & Analytics, a new service that reports on video-on-demand (VOD) usage.

The service offers viewing stats based on real time transactions collected at the set-top box level.

At launch, Comcast will be providing VOD data for the service. Comcast will also begin using the NORA service immediately to analyze trends in VOD usage based on a number of factors, including programmer, program distributor, program category and the box-office revenue.
By providing set top box-level data on actual VOD selections, the service will let Nielsen clients interpret on-demand viewing trends.

The announcement reflects a larger trend of advertisers looking for accurate, real-time stats, and also highlights the podcasting world’s lack of accepted listening/viewing stats. For the foreseeable future, advertisers are going to feel a lot more comfortable putting their money into on-demand television than video podcasts.

According to research from Accustream, user generated video (UGV) - things like video podcasts, vlogs and YouTube videos - scored 22 billion views in 2007.

That’s a 70% increase over 2006. People’s attention is moving to online video fast, limited mainly by bandwidth and the availability of content.

Other research highlights:

• Long tail videos getting substantial traffic - almost 20% of total views generated in 2007 were delivered by videos published in 2006 or before.
• UGV sites are attracting the attention of pros - There is a growing presence of both semi-professional and professional content inside UGV environments. For example, YouTube partner channels accounted for 10.6% of cumulative site views generated over the past year. Semi professional content grabbed a 47.5% total share on MySpace TV, and the Screen Bites category on Crackle.com generated a 17.5% cumulative share of total views.

According to the analysts at Compete, the Podshow podcasting network is one of the top five movers and shakers of 2007.

Here’s what PodShow’s Adam Curry has to say about the news:

This is a report I’m extremely proud to post about. According to Compete.com PodShow grew 29144% in 2007, making us the third fastest growing site, sans pr0n content even

Congratulations to the independent producers who are our partners in this success.

There are a lot of reasons why PodShow is growing - but the biggest is that they’ve done a good job of getting talented, attractive video podcasters that create content that’s of interest to a broad audience.

Compete also notes that there’s a larger trend at work here:

Among the fastest growing sites, eighteen of the twenty offer a prominent peer-to-peer communication platform. Even in the adult video category, sites that function almost identically to YouTube (redtube.com and youporn.com) represent the fastest growing.

The numbers attest to the efforts of PodShow and all the talented podcasters that are making this type of growth possible!