Posts tagged Facebook

Social Networking usage: South Africa

Feb 8th

Posted by Dan Taylor in Social Media

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When it comes to social media usage stats, African countries usually fly below the radar. However, Africa’s southern most nation, South Africa currently ranks number 29th on Facebook’s global user list, and demonstrates a number of similarities with much larger using countries.

The recent South African Friendship 2.0 survey found that the average South African Facebook user is in their 30’s, employed full time, and describe themselves as sociable and outgoing. The survey sampled South Africans aged 16 years or older.

With a massive 82 percent, Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in South Africa. Again, South Africa ranks number 29 on Facebook’s global usage statistics (by country), and has an estimated 2.6 million users per month that generate over 1.1 billion page views. Over half of Facebooking South Africans access the site via their mobile devices, 1.58 million. To put this in perspective, of those surveyed, only 18 percent responded that they have a MySpace profile.

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Social Media Statistics

Feb 2nd

Posted by Dan Taylor in Social Media

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Opinions abound on Social Media. How it works, where it works best, how individuals and businesses can use it best, etc. Each of these opinions have their own intrinsic value, but sometimes, nothing beats cold hard numbers. As Joe Friday said, “All we want are the facts, ma’am,”- let’s take a look at some Social Media statistics.

  • Facebook receives and shares more than 3.5 billion pieces of content (links, news stories, blog posts) on a weekly basis.
  • Facebook pages have generated more than 5.3 billion fans.
  • Approximately 700,000 local businesses have active Facebook fan pages.
  • Approximately 70 percent of Facebook users arrive from outside the United States.
  • Over 250 Facebook applications have over 1 million combined users each month.
  • Since December 2008, more than 80,000 websites have integrated Facebook Connect. More than 60 million Facebook users actively use this service across any number of these 80,000+ sites that offer the feature.
  • 55-65 year old females make up the fastest growing segment on Facebook
  • Facebook paid $0 to have their entire site translated into Spanish via a crowdsourced Wiki. The site was translated in less than 4 weeks.

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Baby Boomers flock to Social Networking in 2009

Feb 1st

Posted by Dan Taylor in Social Media

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There’s no arguing that 2009 was a banner year for online social networking platforms. Obviously, the big players in the field, Facebook and Twitter, saw a healthy increase in user activity. A new report from eMarketer might just point to the reason why: Baby Boomers went from online consumers of digital media to social busy-bees.

The report analyzes 4 unique market segments, Millenials (14-26), Gen X (27-43), Baby Boomers (44-63) and Mature (63-75). Not surprisingly, both Millenials and Gen X ‘ers (myself included) have maintained consistently high levels of social media profiles over the past three years. Conversely, Baby Boomers and Matures saw a massive growth rate in 2009.

Looking at the numbers, 31 percent of Baby Boomers and 14 percent of Matures actively attended to (i.e. status updates, photo uploads, etc.) their profiles in 2008, while one year later, these numbers have seen a significant jump: 46 percent and 36 percent, respectively, in 2009.

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Is Apple working on a PayPal killer?

Aug 5th

Posted by Dan Taylor in News

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Just about everywhere you go these days, someone’s trying to make it easier for you to pay. Obviously, the driving force behind this is to ultimately make the sale by facilitating the consumers option to pay. And while the internet has seen it’s fair share, some successful, others not, of ways to pay, there is a constant stream of improvements to the method making their way to market everyday. But let’s face it, when it comes down to paying for something via the internet, without a direct credit card charge, my guesstimate would be that 85% of the average internet surfing/shopping consumer could name only one: PayPal.

app_storeWe already know for certain that facebook has been playing with microtransactions and multiple payment platforms and options via their “Pay with Facebook” system, but as of now, we’ve got nothing but confirmations that something is being worked on. All that might come to a grinding halt if Wall Street gossips have any validity behind them. Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that said gossiper(s) may have had one too many drinks at a lower Manhattan establishment recently, and mentioned that Apple execs have dropped hints suggesting that the primarily hardware focused company is considering creating a service that would allow iTunes users (store account holders, with a valid credit card on file, or course) to use those accounts to pay for things outside the iTunes realm.

Remember, with the introduction of the iPhone OS 3.0, users are now able to spend freely on virtual and subscription goods within third party iPhone applications. In other words, the vast majority of the technology is already there, it’s just a question of opening this tech up to interface with external third-party platforms.

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