105 Million Plus Registered Users, 300 New Signups Per day… Staggering Twitter Statistics From Chirp
During Twitter’s first developer’s conference, Chirp, the team at Twitter shared incredible statistics of its growth since launch. ReadWriteWeb provides a full roundup. Also of note, Twitter has announced several major features including Places, a feature that will allow Twitter users to identify their geo-location, tied to actual “points of interest” like restaurants, museums, etc. However, Twitter’s Ev Williams maintains that they are not looking to compete with Foursquare. TechCrunch provides a roundup of Ev’s keynote here.
“Tomorrow’s News”
Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism in association with the American Society of News Editors and the Radio Television Digital News Association, released the findings of its “The Future of Journalism” study. Overall, the study revealed that nearly six in ten executives surveyed see the industry moving in the wrong direction; 41% believe it is headed in the right direction. Additional findings include:
- Most online revenue sources focus on conventional display and banner advertising.
- Six out of ten feel that “The internet is changing the fundamental values of journalism… Their biggest concern is loosening standards of accuracy and verification, much of it tied to the immediacy of the Web.”
- 75% say mobile apps are “essential or very important”
Mary Meeker Predicts ”Mobile Internet Will Soon Overtake Fixed Internet”
GigaOM reviews Mary Meeker’s latest “State of the Internet” report. Of particular note, Meeker predicts, “more users will connect to the Internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs” in the next five years. She also shares the implications for ecommerce. As Mathew Ingram reports, ecommerce will continue to develop features like
location-based services, time-based offers, mobile coupons, push notifications, etc. In China, the success of social network Tencent proves that virtual goods can be a big business, she says — virtual goods sales accounted for $2.2 billion worth of the company’s revenue in 2009 and $24 in annual revenue per user. Online commerce and paid services made up 32 percent of mobile revenue in Japan in 2008, up from just 14 percent in 2000. Meeker’s report suggests that the rest of the world — which is still below the 14 percent-mark — could see much the same trajectory over the next 10 years.
“For Every Accountant, Hire an Artist”
Christine Huang provides a great roundup of four presentations at the PSFK Conference last week that focused on storytelling. Nicholas Felton’s presentation provided further insight on his experience capturing and quantifying the seemingly insignificant daily details of his life and sharing them with the world. He’s established Daytum.com to help others do the same. Christine says, “Felton’s reports are stunning experiments in tracking and quantifying experience; they serve as proof that even in the most quotidian details of our lives lie poignant patterns, progressions, and a kind of beauty worth noticing.” This reminded me of Clive Thompson’s “I’m So Digitally Close to You” article on “ambient awareness” in social media for the New York Times. It also reminded me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s quote on marriage in Committed and the parallel of what’s so powerful about social media.
Marriage is those two thousand indistinguishable conversations, chatted over two thousands indistinguishable breakfasts, where intimacy turns like a slow wheel. How do you measure the worth of becoming that familiar to somebody… that you become an almost invisible necessity, like air?
