stats

Yesterday Facebook gave the world its biggest inside peek into the company's inner workings, and the number crunching is far from over.

The latest batch comes from Experian Hitwise, which has posted a breakdown of what it says are 10 "key statistics" about the company's presence online in the U.S. according to data it's gathered. That includes the fact that one ouf out every five page views in January were on Facebook.com.

Some of the findings by category:

Prevalence "Facebook" is the most searched term in the U.S., Hitwise said, … Read more

Internet Explorer staved off rival browsers on personal computers in the first month of 2012, but a new battlefield is emerging where Microsoft has virtually no presence today: mobile.

Among personal computers, IE reclaimed a chunk the global browser usage, rising from 51.9 percent in December to 53 percent in January, according to new statistics from Net Applications.

However, while browsing with desktops and laptops dominates, mobile devices are catching up. Smartphones and tablets accounted for an all-time high of 8.8 percent of browsing in January, up from 7.7 percent the month earlier.

And on mobile, Microsoft'… Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--The U.S. is becoming a smartphone nation.

Today at the AppNation conference here, Doug Purdy, Facebook's director of developer relations, reminded the developers in the audience of the existence of the recently updated Facebook Platform for Mobile. Then, to emphasize the imperative for developers to focus on the mobile platform, he was followed by Jonathan Carson of Nielsen, who rolled out adoption figures that made it clear that the action in development has definitively moved to the mobile space.

Facebook: We're serious about mobile While Facebook announced a platform for mobile in 2007 (see this blog post … Read more

With all the coverage last week regarding Facebook and the changes that will be rolling out, it was discovered that Facebook users can now see who unfriended them in the new Timeline view. But, for some users, Facebook isn't a preferred social network. What about people who care to know who has stopped following them on Twitter?

By default, Twitter sends you an e-mail when you gain a new follower, but not when you lose a follower. Luckily, there are some pretty good services out there to fill the void.… Read more

As more mobile applications hit stores, one researcher believes the number of downloads will skyrocket.

In 2015, the total number of mobile-application downloads is expected to reach nearly 48 billion, research firm In-Stat reported today. The company said that the growth in downloads will be due mainly to the growing popularity of touchscreen-equipped smartphones. According to In-Stat, touchscreens will be available on approximately 90 percent of all smartphones shipped this year, and that number could hit nearly 100 percent in the next several years.

It also helps that the smartphone business is booming. In 2010, smartphones accounted for 23 percent … Read more

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a popular first-person shooter game, and competition among players can be intense. If you're a fan of the game and like to frequently check stats--either your own or other players'--try Battlefield Bad Company 2 Stats. This extension for Google Chrome lets you quickly view the game statistics for any Battlefield: Bad Company 2 player.

Like most Chrome extensions, Battlefield Bad Company 2 Stats installs easily, requiring not even so much as a browser restart. The extension appears as an icon to the right of Chrome's address bar, and clicking on it brings … Read more

The total number of paid TV subscribers was up last year, but cable companies weren't so lucky.

According to In-Stat, the total number of paid TV subscribers around the world was up over 6 percent compared with 2009. The research firm said that gains in subscribers were seen in "nearly every region" around the globe. However, when it came to cable television subscriptions, only Western Europe saw a jump compared with 2009.

Elsewhere around the world, cable customers were migrating to satellite or IPTV, the research firm said.

Growth in the paid TV business in 2010 has … Read more

The importance of DVDs to the entertainment industry will decline significantly over the next few years, predicts a study from research firm In-Stat.

Physical disc sales, which includes both DVDs and Blu-ray discs, are expected to decline by $4.6 billion between 2009 and 2014, In-Stat said today. Over that period, DVD sales are expected to plummet. At the same time, Blu-ray sales are expected to climb--but not enough to make up for the decline in DVDs.

In place of physical discs, streaming content and digital downloads are quickly gaining steam. In-Stat said that the video-download and streaming revenue is … Read more

Gmail's Priority Inbox, which launched in August and enables users to separate important e-mails from ones that can wait till later, is actually saving people time, Google said in a blog post yesterday.

According to the company, Gmail users who are utilizing Priority Inbox are spending about 43 percent more of their time "reading important mail." Google added that Priority Inbox users overall are spending 15 percent less time sifting through e-mail than those who aren't tapping the feature.

Priority Inbox separates e-mail into three categories: "important and unread," "starred," and "… Read more