Message from Michael - March 9, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        March 9, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

      TWITTER GOES ROCKIN’ ROBIN

      THE INTERNET BIG PICTURE

      THE INTERNET LITTLE PICTURE

      COCKTAIL CHATTER –THE BEATLES

 

We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line. 

 

      TWITTER GOES ROCKIN ROBIN:  To steal a line from the old Rock and Roll song, it seems like it’s true that every little bird, every little bee loves to hear the Robin go tweet-tweet-tweet.  And not just in the U.S. either.  According to Twitter’s own stats site, most of the tweets come from outside the U.S. (60%) – meaning of course, that less than half of Twitter’s traffic (40%) is in the U.S.  Even more interesting, the most twittering country in the world after the U.S. is Japan with 39% of the total International traffic, which means it accounts for a fourth (23.4%) of ALL Twitter traffic.  That may explain why Twitter recently received an additional $35 Million in unsolicited funding.  Let me repeat the word – unsolicited.  Twitter folks said they didn’t need it, but figured they might as well take it.  There is speculation that part of the reason is that Google may try to buy Twitter.  And it’s easy to see why.  The phenomenon has spawned a whole sub-industry of applications and sites tracking twitter.  The rumored Google buy-out may also be the reason why Twitter bought Summize.com and turned it into its own Twitter search engine (search.twitter.com).  There’s also twitterfall.com which provides a cascading screen of tweets which can be used to track any subject you choose.  There’s tweetvolume.com where you can enter a word or series of words to see how often they appear on Twitter.  There’s tweetscan.com, which highlights the most popular Twitter topics (Rush Limbaugh led the list when I checked.)  There’s tweetmeme.com which tracks the most popular links on Twitter every five minutes.  (A comic website called xkcd.com was popular when I checked.)  There’s tweetdeck.com which takes the “abundance of information” (i.e. tweet feeds) and breaks it into sub groups so you can catch up with your ‘overnight global twitterings.’  There’s tweetfind.com where you can find Twitters and add your own Twitter. 

That has developed into a sub-industry of the sub-industry – building up the number of your Twitter followers.   Mostly it’s businesses doing this, but it’s also individuals.  Web analytics firm Omniture has added a twitter tracking element to its Site Analyst software for businesses.  Digital brand management firm Electric Artists has started a Twitter tracking service of the top media, entertainment and consumer products on Twitter.  The leading media brand, my friends at CNN will be happy to know, was CNN Breaking News where the killing of an Illinois pastor had an incredible 419,992 followers at the time I checked.  Of course, to put it in perspective, Britney Spears had 321,464 followers even though the folks at Electric Artists noted that her tweets were updates by her staff and not the real thing, like Ashton Kucher (266K) or Shaq O’Neal (261K).  Leading the brand list when I checked was Zappos.com, an online retail store that started out as a shoe store and which had a whopping 198,421 followers. (And I hadn’t even heard of it.)  That number may be as much proof of the power of Twitter as anything else.  Columnist Phil Johnson argues in Advertising Age that Twitter is the next ‘disruptive technology,’ changing the established business model for advertisers and businesses. As he notes, Twitter has had write-ups in all the major media in the world.  There’s even a consulting firm, focused just on Twitter – pistachioconsulting.com, which promises to “turn micro-sharing into macro results.”

I know I have devoted a lot of this MfM report on Twitter, but the reason is that I am just stunned about how fast it has taken off.  I was one of the first people to report on it and I can remember thinking (like most other people) that it was just a weird idea.  You get a sense that even founder Evan Williams is still stunned.  In a talk at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference, he said “this seemingly trivial concept (that)… let’s people feel more connected” was originally designed as a “broadcast medium” but that the users had re-shaped it into much more.  During the San Diego wildfires, not only did people in the area use Twitter but so did the Los Angeles Times and even the San Diego Fire Department.  It became wildly popular in Atlanta when people used it to let others know about gas stations with lower prices during the gas shortage.  And considering that a Korean BBQ Taco Truck (no, I’m not making this up) creates huge crowds in Los Angeles just by Twittering its next location; that one developer has created an application where the baby in a pregnant woman can telegraph its first kick by Twitter; that another developer has created a Twitter application that let’s a plant tell its owner that it needs to be watered, it is understandable when Williams tells the conference attendees, “I have no idea where Twitter will go next.”

      THE INTERNET BIG PICTURE:  Nearly a quarter of the world’s population (23.5%) is on the Internet.  That translates into 1.574 Billion Internet users out of a total world population (as of December 31, 2008) of 6.710 Billion people.  The fastest growth, since the website internetworldstats.com started keeping figures in 2000, has come in the Middle East (1,296%), closely followed by Africa (1,100%), while the greatest penetration is in North America with three quarters (73.1%) of the population online; and of course the largest Internet population is in Asia with more than 650 Million Internet users.  The actual number of Internet users in the Middle East is just under 46 Million while Africa has just more than 54 Million.  North America has nearly 247 Million users which is significantly lower than Europe (390 Million) but then again, Europe’s population is significantly higher (804 Million) so its rate of penetration (48.5%) is significantly lower than the U.S.

As reported before in MfM, China has the largest population of Internet users (253 Million), although one of the lowest penetration rates (19%) followed by the U.S. (220 Million and a penetration of 72.5%).  But in third place is Japan where, also, three quarters (73.8%) of the country’s population (127 Million) is on the Internet (94 Million.)  Fourth places goes to India with 60 Million users but a penetration rate of slightly higher than five percent.  It’s followed by Germany (52 Million and 63.8%), Brazil (50 Million and 26.1%), the U.K. (42 Million and 68.6%), France (36 Million and 58.1%), South Korea (35 Million and 70.7%), Italy (35 Million and 59.7%) and Russia at 11^th place (33 Million and 23.2%).  Not surprisingly the smallest countries have the highest broadband penetration rate with Bermuda (36.5%) leading the pack, followed by Netherlands (32.8%), Denmark (31.8%), Iceland (29.3%), Switzerland (28.5%), Liechtenstein (28.1%) and Monaco (28.1%) with the U.S. in 19^th place (21.4%).

As a side note, the United Nations agency, the International Telecommunications Union, reports that there were 4.1 Billion ‘mobile subscriptions’ as they put it, at the end of 2008. That’s four times the One Billion number in 2002.  And as a footnote and sort of plug (I guess), the website mentioned – http://www.internetworldstats.com – has some great resource material on maximizing your Internet marketing efforts.

      THE INTERNET LITTLE PICTURE:  It occurs in the offices and homes of people everywhere. And when it comes down to that, the average person surfing the Internet spends less than a minute viewing any one web page, according to data compiled by Nielsen Online.  That’s even though they spend more than an hour, on average, during any surfing session each month.  The explanation may be that even though the folks at Nielsen Online say their data from last year shows that people spend around 38 hours on the Internet at home (an important distinction) on average, they are visiting upwards of 1,600 web pages each of those months.  Just to make this even more confusing, the study says people average 36 visits a month and visit about 62 domains.  Yeah, I know, lots of numbers, and somewhere in there, is some meaning.

Okay, a little less confusing, and equally interesting is Nielsen’s so-called Three-Screen Report, or as they like to label it, the A2/M2 study.  Part of this you may have already heard or read about.  For example, Americans watch an average 151 hours of Television a month, based on the fourth quarter of 2008.  By comparison, they spent less than one fifth that time (27 hours) on the Internet.  And of that, they spent less than three hours (2:53, to be exact) watching video online.  And despite all the hoopla about DVR’s, Americans did not spend that much time (7 hours and 11 minutes) watching time-shifted TV.  Nielsen reports that the number of homes with DVR’s does though continue to grow with nearly a third (29%) of American homes now time shift capable.  Candidly, I couldn’t figure out why there was more mobile video viewing (3 hours and 42 minutes) than Internet video viewing (2 hours and 53 minutes), until I re-read the report and saw that these are the “early adopters” using mobile video.  Those early adopters are growing, with 11 Million Americans using mobile video – an increase of 9% from the previous quarter.  Lastly, the most interesting statistic I found was that Nielsen says nearly a third (31%) of Internet activity occurs when the person is watching television.      

      COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The Wall Street Journal reports that MTV is going to release a video game based on The Beatles.  The “Rock Band” video game will be released in September (along with instruments modeled after the ones used by the band), and represents the “first foray” into the digital world for the group, which the newspaper notes, has kept its music away from digital distribution outlets like iTunes.  And if that isn’t enough Beatles cocktail chatter for you, The New York Times reports that Liverpool Hope University in the boys’ hometown is going to offer the world’s first Master’s degree in Beatles studies.  Times writer Alan Kozinn who wrote the book “The Beatles” says he is surprised by the number of young people who know so much Beatles material (including, I could add, one of my daughters).  He admits it may be strange to consider what a graduate with a master’s in Beatle studies could do with such a degree, but he argues it could be useful not just for musicians but for students of social studies trying to understand the times.

      SUBSCRIPTIONS:  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.