A new poll from AP and CNBC on the eve of the Facebook IPO shows that Americans are ambivalent about the company and that it faces numerous challenges as it seeks to generate more revenue growth from its already massive user base. The AP-CNBC poll was conducted May 3 through May 7. The  survey sample was 1,004 US adults. Among survey respondents 56 percent had a Facebook profile, 40 percent did not and 4 percent didn't know. Google, Apple and Microsoft are viewed more favorably than Facebook. Of the comparison group Twitter was viewed less favorably. The results shift by demographic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Statistics | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Facebook is the number one choice for social login and its gains over the past two years have it now approaching 50 percent penetration among social login services, a new study shows. In analyzing at the 365,000 websites that use its services, Janrain reports that 45 percent of consumers use their Facebook accounts to login on third-party websites -- a number that's been increasing steadily since the first quarter of 2010. As the graph below shows, Google was previously the top social login service, but it's a fairly distant second place now with 30 percent market share. Janrain f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

The Consumers Union, the entity behind Consumer Reports, is launching an aggressive campaign for a national privacy law that would offer more transparency and control to online users in connection with data mining, online ad targeting and tracking. In particular, Consumers Union is taking aim at Facebook as the exemplar of practices that it believes should be made more transparent to consumers and/or reined in. The advocacy group took out a full-page ad (.pdf and above) critical of Facebook in the print version of Politico according to AdAge. AdAge remarked that "While the ad copy seems [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Legal | Facebook: Statistics | Legal: Privacy

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Facebook IPO is set now for May 18. Prior to that date Facebook executives will be on a roadshow selling the IPO to brokerages and institutional investors. According to the Journal CEO Mark Zuckerberg "will make some appearance on the roadshow, though he won't attend all meetings." The heavy lifting will be by COO Sheryl Sandberg and CFO David Ebersman. It will be a huge IPO, probably "oversubscribed." Investors will be going out of their minds to get in on it (how long the stock is held is another question). Out of the gate the company will [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Statistics | Top News

Facebook has amended its S-1 filing to include a range of new facts and data. Below are some of the more interesting details that I was able to find on my first review of the revised document. Revenue & Users In the first quarter this year Facebook made $1.058 billion. That was up from $731 million a year ago but down from Q4 2011. In 2011 as a whole the company made $3.71 billion. Ad revenue in Q1 was $872 million; "fees and payments" revenue was $186 million. The company has $3.9 billion cash on hand. Facebook also disclosed that 15 percent of Q1 2012 revenue came from Zynga: Thirt [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Google's dominance outside the U.S. is taking a slight hit with news today that Facebook has overtaken it five times this month as the most-visited website in Brazil. The news comes from Serasa Experian (link in Portuguese), the Brazilian version of Experian Hitwise. The company reports that Facebook first beat out Google for most visits back on April 1st, then again on April 6th and April 8th. It happened for the fourth and fifth times this past weekend, when Facebook was the most popular site in Brazil on both April 14th and 15th. On the 14th, Facebook received 10.86 percent of all we [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: International | Facebook: Statistics | Google | Google: International | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media

Google+ now has 170 million users. Well, 170 million who have "upgraded" to Google+, whatever that means. It's the latest in crazy numbers from Google. The people who actually do use Google+ as a social network deserve better than this PR spin. It's time for Google to properly report their numbers, lest outsiders begin believing the "ghost town" moniker. Do I sound tired? I am. We get numbers that aren't numbers, and this from the company that once spent a month in crisis mode back in 2005 when competitor Yahoo claimed to have more web pages indexed than it did. Oh dear. We had to have [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

Marketers have been slow to adopt Google+, with only 40 percent currently using it, but many say they want to learn more about it and plan to increase their use of Google's incipient social network. Facebook, meanwhile, remains the dominant social networking site for marketers, with more than 90 percent adoption. The numbers come from Social Media Examiner's fourth annual survey of marketers and business owners. The January survey collected replies from more than 3,800 marketers around the world, a group that was almost equally split between B2B and B2C marketers. Most Popular Socia [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Internet Marketing Industry: Stats | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter: Statistics

It's only been three weeks since Facebook's announcement of  Timeline for brands.  So far the results are looking very positive.  A study from Simply Measured, a social analytics and reporting company,  revealed that Timeline has increased fan engagement, content engagement & photo & video engagement for brands.  Timeline for brands allows for a much more visual display for content, photos and videos: In order to test the impact that Timeline had for brands, 15 Fan Pages were tracked pre and post format change.  The biggest statistic in favor of Timeline was the averag [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Statistics: Social Media

Email and social media are pretty similar when it comes to what drives consumers to connect -- or disconnect -- with brands. A new study from email provider Constant Contact and Chadwick Martin Bailey shows that the chance to get discounts and special offers is the primary reason that consumers "like" a Facebook page and why they subscribe to a company e-mail list. The survey, conducted in late 2011, involved 1,481 adults in the U.S. who completed a 15-minute online questionnaire. Fifty-eight percent of respondents said they subscribe to a company mailing list to get discounts and spe [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Email Marketing | Email Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Email Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media

Earlier this week I moderated a panel at the SXSW conference entitled: "Social Commerce: Not Yet Taking Off Like Farmville." The session explored the nature of "social commerce" and why companies were having trouble selling on Facebook, among other things. One of the basic ideas expressed was that people aren't looking to "shop" on Facebook; they're sharing with friends, having fun and so on. Those sentiments appear to be widespread and confirmed by a new survey from BlogHer, the women-centric blog network. The online survey was conducted last month among readers of the blog network and ge [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Statistics | Pinterest | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media

With its users only spending an average of three minutes per month on the site, Google+ is a "virtual ghost town" compared to Facebook and other social networking sites. That's how the Wall Street Journal characterizes Google's social network while reporting new usage stats from comScore. According to comScore, Google+ users averaged only three minutes on the site during January, a pittance compared to Facebook's average of 405 minutes per visitor. Tumblr and Pinterest both saw 89 minutes per user on average, while LinkedIn clocked in at 17 minutes per user and Twitter at 21 minutes. The b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter: Statistics

Facebook wants everyone to know just how big and successful its mobile platform has become in a short period of time. In short: Very big. And very successful. In a blog post this morning, Facebook's James Pearce (Head of Mobile Develoepr Relations) trumpets several big stats about how the Facebook Platform has benefited mobile apps and games: more than 60 million visitors every month more than 320 million visits to mobile apps last month (January) traffic from Facebook Mobile to Yahoo's mobile news app has increased 3.5x since February 14th to 1.6 million visitors per day Pearce [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: Statistics | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Yahoo: News

The current privacy atmosphere within social networking sites was uncovered in a Privacy Management report released today by Pew Internet.  The study questioned social media users on privacy options, friending (& defriending) habits, and the removal of comments and photo tags.  Two-thirds of online adults were active on a social networking sites (SNS), the majority of which restrict access, prune friends or delete content they don't like. Profile Privacy The majority of users, 58 percent,  reported profile restrictions were fully private and only visible to their friends.  This per [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Statistics | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

A recent study from Pew Interactive polled Facebook users on how exactly they use the various elements of Facebook.  A handful of interesting findings were uncovered including a segment of "power users," gender-based differences and activity usage. Power Users One of the most prevalent themes in the data is the minority existence of "power users" that drive the majority of activities.  This niche power segment makes up 20-30% of all Facebookers and is the lifeblood of Facebook interaction.  This specialty group tags photos, messages and likes content regularly.  They do so at an astou [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics

Facebook has filed its IPO paperwork and the S-1 statement contains an utterly dizzying amount of statistics. The numbers provide a glimpse into Facebook's stunning growth since its founding in 2004, with a particular emphasis on what's been happening over the past three years. Here's a look in graphical/chart form at some of the most compelling facts and figures from Facebook's S-1 filing. Facebook's User Base Facebook's global user base is growing dramatically, and has been for years. Facebook says it has 845 million "monthly active users" around the world as of December 31, 2011. That' [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Earlier this week, Facebook touted some data showing how the media has reaped benefits from the Subscribe button -- but at least one journalist isn't so sure that the numbers mean much. The Subscribe button launched in September and added Twitter-like functionality to Facebook; users could subscribe to anyone else's public posts, whether they were Facebook friends or not. Facebook's Vadim Lavrusik, who manages the company's journalist program, wrote that thousands of journalists are using the Subscribe button, and that the average journalist has seen a 320 percent increase in subscribers [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Buttons & Plugins | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: Statistics

Two interesting Facebook reports surfaced today, one displaying the estimated growth of the social network and the other showing that competitors may be eating up market share.  Facebook states that they currently have "more than 800 million" active users, 50% of which log on to Facebook everyday. Facebook To Hit A Billion? Digital firm, iCrossing, took a look at the most recent 800 million user count and created a scientific estimate on when the 1 Billion user mark would be obtained.  The results show  the billion user barrier would be broken mid-August: When generating th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News

The rise of social media has inevitably led to the growth of social spam.  The Wall Street Journal reported that social spam is on the rise and that the social networks are staffing up to combat this issue.  Spam effects over 4 million users every day on Facebook alone.  It's not stopping either; the volume of spam on Facebook is growing faster than their userbase. Typical social spam includes tricking users into liking/sharing content (like-jacking), or the promotion of malware from a 3rd party site.  The trickiest issue with social spam is that the message generally comes from a us [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Social Media Marketing: Spam | Twitter: Statistics

The biggest brands in the world are adopting Google+ at a quick rate, to the point that Google+ pages are beginning to close the gap with Facebook pages. But with Facebook pages having been around much longer, brands still have exponentially more fans there than they have followers on Google+. According to BrightEdge's December SocialShare report, 77 of the top 100 brands now have Google+ pages -- a 26% rise from the 61 brands that had pages a month earlier. Google+ is catching up to Facebook, where 93 of the top 100 brands have pages. The numbers are particularly impressive when you [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: Statistics | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Top News