Yahoo reported the best month-over-month unique viewer performance gains among the top 10 US online video properties in December 2011, according to comScore VideoMetrix data. Yahoo reported about 53.3 million viewers, up 5.8% from 50.4 million in November, passing Facebook for the third spot. Facebook, which dropped 17% of its viewers to 42 million, fell from third place to the fifth spot, behind Viacom, which lost 3.5% of its viewers. NBC Universal, which had occupied the 9th spot in November, dropped out of the top 10, replaced by Amazon. Read More »

MTV’s Facebook fan page boasted 29.6 million fans as of December 29, 2011 representing a 126% increase from December 28, 2010, and launching the brand into the top 5 branded fan pages by size, according to January 2012 analysis from Ignite Social Media. Facebook took the top spot again in 2011 with 57 million fans, up 83% from 2010. YouTube (48.4 million) and Coca-Cola (36.5 million) remained in the second and third positions, up 91% and 71%, respectively.
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About 28.9 million US consumers visited toy sites in October 2011, representing 34% month-over-month growth from roughly 21.6 million US consumers in October, making the retail category subset the fastest growing by percentage change, according to [download page] comScore Media Metrix data. Read More »

“Facebook” was the top-searched term in the US in 2011, accounting for 3.1% of all searches, representing a 46% increase from 2010, when it was also the top-searched term, according to an analysis of the year’s top 1000 search terms by Experian Hitwise. Four variations of the popular social networking site were among the top 10 terms, accounting for 4.4% of searches overall, a 24% increase from 2010. This year marks the sixth straight year that a social network search term has topped the list. Read More »

The number of smartphone users engaged in rich media activities has increased substantially in the past year, according to [download page] a December 2011 report from Nielsen. 26 million smartphone subscribers viewed videos on their devices in Q3 2011, representing 62.5% growth from 16 million in Q3 2010. Meanwhile, the number of smartphone subscribers downloading applications has risen 53% year-over-year to 49 million, while 35 million are downloading games, up 83% from 19 million in Q3 2010. Read More »

Yahoo and Hulu reported the only month-over-month unique viewer performance gains among the top 10 US online video properties in November 2011, according to comScore VideoMetrix data. Yahoo reported about 50.4 million viewers, up 15% from less than 44 million, while Hulu reported 31.3 million viewers, up more than 7% from 29.2 million viewers. Yahoo jumped from sixth to fourth place, passing Microsoft, October’s fourth place finisher, which dropped 9% of its viewers to 44.7 million and the sixth rank. Read More »

Facebook (42%) was the #1 option in Q3 2011 for social logins among online users who opted to use a social network identity to speed up registration on sites across the web, according to December 2011 analysis from Janrain. Data from the analysis indicates that 29% of users turned to their Google accounts for login, with Yahoo (11%), Twitter (8%), and WindowsLive (4%) appealing to a far smaller subset. Among mobile users, Facebook and Google were tied for the most popular, each with 37% of logins, ahead of Yahoo (12%) and Twitter (10%).

Marketers ought to be encouraged: Facebook login also provides the most amount of profile data, offering 9 pieces of information that can be used to improve personalization, targeting and segmentation. And while Yahoo and MySpace both provide 8 pieces of data, Google only offers 4. Read More »

The top 10 web domains by percentage of total time spent online accounted for 36% of total consumer attention in September 2011, according to December analysis from Compete. Data from the analysis indicates that this represents a small increase from 35% share of attention in September 2006, but a significant 20% rise from 30% share in September 2001. According to Compete insight, these results disprove the “long-tail theory” that describes the democratization of media and business through the internet by removing some of the institutionalized hegemonic powers of the largest mainstream outlets. Read More »

Facebook and NBC Universal reported the best month-over-month unique viewer performance gains among the top 10 US online video properties in October 2011, according to comScore VideoMetrix data. Facebook reported about 60 million viewers, up 20% from roughly 50 million, while NBC reported 39.3 million viewers, up 32% from 29.8 million viewers. Facebook jumped from fifth to second place, leapfrogging VEVO, September’s second place finisher, which dropped a marginal amount of viewers while remaining at about 57 million. Read More »

Americans spent $816 million online this Black Friday, representing a 26% increase from $648 million in 2010, and making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011, according to November analysis from comScore. Data from the analysis indicates that Thanksgiving Day also achieved an 18% year-over-year increase in spending, rising from $407 million to $479 million. Overall online spending for the holiday season to-date (from November 1 to 25) rose to $12.7 billion, marking 15% growth from $11.1 billion in the corresponding shopping days from 2010.

According to earlier November data from comScore, online retail spending reached $36.3 billion in Q3. Read More »