We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #55

Mashup
jaime.novoa

Americans of all ages turn to the Internet to get their news
A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that the Internet is the main source of news for 41% of American adults, surpassing newspapers and getting closer and closer to the power of television as a news source. This data confirms a trend that has been visible for at least ten years – that more and more adults turn to the Internet for both national and international news.

But what’s particularly interesting – and new – is that the research shows that in 2010, the 18-29 demographic used the internet as its main source for catching up on the news, ahead of TV:

 
Corporate Blogs are still relevant
A survey covered by eMarketer shows that nearly a quarter of Fortune 1,000 companies have a corporate blog. The survey examined the reasons these companies maintain blogs:

 

MySpace to limit their international operations
Things aren’t exactly rosy for MySpace at present. The company, which was acquired by News Corporation in 2005 for US$580 million, is set to limit its international operations by announcing a major restructure, according to The Telegraph.

After layoffs that took place a few months ago, MySpace’s international presence extends simply to offices in London, Berlin and Sydney with roughly 150 employees combined. But with this evening’s news that much of the London office will close – leaving just a ‘skeleton’ staff – it’s clear that they’re not really backing the relaunch of the site; indeed, what’s far from clear is what the future of MySpace actually holds.

LinkedIn to go public in 2011?
According to Reuters, the social networking site LinkedIn plans to go public in 2011, although a spokesman for the company said “an IPO is just one of many tactics that we could consider” in the future.

However, news from Silicon Alley Insider doesn’t bode well – they claim that LinkedIn’s ads are not working at all well for marketers, with examples of ads with an average cost per click of $14.89 and very small conversion rates.

Facebook’s revenue figures and 750 million photos over NY weekend
This has been one of the stories of the week. Is Facebook valued too high or even too low? There are opinions across the spectrum, but what is clear is that its business is generating huge revenues. According to documents distributed by Goldman Sachs, Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2010 and is expected to keep growing in the next fiscal year.

Talking of years, this one started well for Mark Zuckerberg and co, with almost 750 million photos being uploaded to the site over the New Year’s weekend.

Twitter starts 2011 with a new record
That’s right. Even though we are only 10 days into 2011, Twitter has already started making headlines and breaking records that seemed unbreakable. As published on the Twitter Blog a few days ago, minutes after midnight in Japan on January 1st the company set a new record with 6,939 Tweets sent per second.

This is partly because of the huge growth in mobile for the company – Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed at CES that 40% of all tweets come from mobile devices, up from 20-25% a year ago.

To see how Twitter was affected by the New Year, just look at Twitter’s visualisation of how it was slowly brought in around the world.

Why is Quora growing so fast?
Quora, the Q&A service created by Facebook’s former CTO, was founded in June 2009. But it wasn’t until recently that it started gaining traction in the online world and making the rounds of Twitter and several very important blogs. So, why did it take the site more than a year to become “popular” as it doubled its normal activity in the month of December?

Sysomos tried to address this by pointing out the associated spike in social media mentions (especially on Twitter), but also confirming the importance of TechCrunch in the site’s growth.

In spite of the huge number of new registrations, at We Are Social the jury is still out on Quora – with some finding it useless, a point epitomised by this satirical site.

Citibank goes to Twitter
Banks, over the years, have been reluctant to get involved in social media. But at least Citibank has decided to give it a try and start responding to those not happy with their service on Twitter. The man behind the account? None other than Frank Eliason, the who ran the famous @Comcastcares account.

‘Foursquare’ your meal and win a dinner for two
Remember the new photo support that was added to Foursquare in recent weeks? Well, Olive Valley, a restaurant in Brooklyn, has seen an opportunity and has started the first foursquare-based photo contest. Customers are encouraged to take photos of their meals and share them via Foursquare’s check-in system. The best ones that are submitted will win a dinner for two.

Ryan Babel charged for Twitter post
In what is to our knowledge a first, Ryan Babel has been charged by the FA for posting a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Man United shirt on Twitter, following Liverpool’s defeat to Man United in the FA Cup 3rd round. This was in spite of later removing the post from Twitter. But it’s hard to sympathise with Babel when it was his dive which meant Arsenal were eliminated from the Champions League in 2008. What’s the Dutch for ‘what goes around, comes around’?

Where did all the spam go?
According to the BBC, spam e-mail levels have been falling dramatically since August, and especially since December.

There is no certain explanation for this unusual situation, but experts agree that this does not mean spam is over – spammers might well simply be targeting new services, such as Twitter and Facebook…