Did Facebook Under Report Android And Twitter Stats?

TechCrunch has noticed that either there has been skyrocketing growth of android and Twitter clients hitting Facebook or some of the numbers previously reported were grossly under reported. FarmVille apparently has 63.9 million monthly active users (MAU) and Texas HoldEm Poker 28.5 million, but until recently android was reported at 67 MAU and Twitter just around 400,000. I guess that makes me an extremely early adopter... 1 of 67 isn't bad, even 1 of 400,000 is admirable. Right?

The numbers however, have suddenly taken a huge spike after what looks like a rather static baseline. Must be a mistake...

The number correction comes just ahead of  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sharing some thoughts with Inside Facebook about Twitter. In his discussion, he admitted he now views Twitter as a “very nice, simple service.”  

Living By The Numbers

For those who have become health conscious, Wired has an interesting article called "Know Thyself: Tracking Every Facet of Life, from Sleep to Mood to Pain, 24/7/365" which discusses our obsession with numbers. Heart rate, calories, alcohol consumption, number of steps taken, hours of sleep, etc.. We are slowly becoming consumed by these numbers and I for one have become a recent victim. The article's author, Gary Wolf, says "The immediate cause of this trend was obvious: New tools had made self-tracking easier. In the past, the methods of quantitative assessment were laborious and arcane. You had to take measurements manually and record them in a log; you had to enter data into spreadsheets and perform operations using unfriendly software; you had to build graphs to tease understanding out of the numbers. Now much of the data-gathering can be automated, and the record-keeping and analysis can be delegated to a host of simple Web apps."

I'll have to confess, my new HTC Dream (android phone) has fueled my obsession...

Social Networking Activities Jump

If you are spending more time on social networking sites these days, you are not alone. According to this Globe and Mail article "Nielsen Online, which measures web traffic, said the number of minutes on social networks in the United States rose 83 per cent in April from the same month a year ago..."

The total number of minutes spent on Facebook alone went from 1.7 billion a year ago to 13.9 billion in April of this year, a 700% increase. As for site popularity Facebook was no. 1, followed by MySpace, Blogger, Tagged.com, and Twitter.com, in that order. Not surprising to me, Twitter saw the greatest growth with a 3,712 per cent increase in April as compared to a year ago.

Study Shows Mobile Internet Use Going Up, Fast

Neilsen Online has some, not so surprising, news regarding Mobile internet use in Britain. According to their number, 7.3m people accessed the internet via their mobile phones, in the second and third quarters of 2008. This represents a 25% increase over last year and compares to just a 3% increase in PC-based access.

"The fact that weather, sports, news and e-mail sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites shows that mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment as opposed to the more entertainment and e-commerce-focused makeup of the leading PC-based sites," says Kent Ferguson, a senior analyst with Nielsen Online.

Some interesting demographics:

25% of mobile internet users are aged 15-24 while the same group make up only 16% of PC based internet users;

23% of the PC based internet users are aged 55 or over while the same group make up only 12% of the mobile internet base.

BBC story here.

Podcast Consumption Up

The PEW Internet & American Life Project has conducted surveys over the past couple of years regarding America's downloading habits as they pertain to Podcasts. In a report published in August of this year the group has found that Internet users who have ever downloaded a podcast went from 7% in February of '06 to 19% in May of this year. Users who download podcasts on a daily basis went from 1% to 3% over the same time period. Check out the pdf version of the report here.