Facebook is 3rd Largest Web Site, by Traffic

Facebook is now the third largest website in the world, taking the number-three spot from Yahoo, according to comScore. Facebook drew an estimated 648 million unique visitors from across the globe in November, 2010, compared to 630 million for Yahoo.

In October the two sites were dead even with 633 million worldwide unique visitors each. The only two Web properties left which are bigger than Facebook are Microsoft (869 million worldwide visitors) and Google (970 million) when you look at all of their sites collectively.

Facebook Overthrows Yahoo To Become The World’s Third Largest Website

Marketers Spending More on Social Media for the Wrong Reasons - The eMarketer Blog

Businesses are adopting social media, but they also are discovering it is no more "free" or "inexpensive." In fact, many seem to be finding that it costs as much money to use social media as any other advertising or marketing channel.

A few years ago, companies could run a few tests and gain some valuable learning without spending much.

But times have changed. Social media sites have matured, and you can’t do much for free anymore, eMarketer argues. A "promoted trend" ad on Twitter can cost $100,000 per day.

Top social media agencies are in demand, and they charge premiums for their work. "Earned" media hasn't been "costless,"either, but as social media "grows up," the costs are climbing as well. Along the way, the historic distinction between earned media and paid media also is blurring.

Marketers Spending More on Social Media for the Wrong Reasons - The eMarketer Blog

Major Smartphone Push in 2011?

In 2010, the cheapest mainstream smartphone cost just below $200, unsubsidized by a carrier contract. But prices could drop by as much as 50 percent in 2011, making a smartphone a viable purchase for many consumers that would have bought a feature phone in the past.

Broadcom's "BCM2157 3G HSDPA 'Android' Baseband" chipset, for example, provides everything a modern smartphone builder needs: a dual core ARM processor, Bluetooth, GPS, support for up to a 5-megapixel camera, support for capacitive HVGA (320x480 like iPhone 3GS) or or WQVGA (~240x400) displays.

The chipset will work on AT&T (T) and T-Mobile's 3G networks in the US and on global GSM providers.

An unsubsidized $100 smartphone will enable more purchases of service plans without contract, and arguably increase competition between mobile service providers. So it is possible that data plan prices could drop as well.

At the very least, m,ore consumers might start using Wi-Fi-only data connections. In one sense that is not a direct driver of data plan sales. On the other hand, use of Wi-Fi connections will create a new habit that indirectly drives more data plan sales.

2011 will be the year Android explodes - Google 24/7 - Fortune Tech

Email, Social Media to Get More Spending by Enterprises

According to a November 2010 survey of business executives around the globe by StrongMail, nearly two-thirds of companies will increase spending on email marketing, and 57% will put more dollars toward social media marketing. Search took a distant third place with 41% of respondents indicating they would spend more.

Email and social will continue to get closer as more marketers integrate the two channels with each other. More than a quarter of respondents said they had already formulated and implemented a strategy for making email and social work together, and another 43% plan to make efforts toward integration in 2011, though some are more prepared than others.

Email, Social Media to See More Marketing Dollars in 2011 - eMarketer

Apple Expects to Ship as Many as 21 Million iPhones, as Early as Q2 2011

Apple is telling component suppliers it wants 20 million gto 21 million iPhones for the first quarter of 2011, DigiTimes reports.

Shipments don't equal sales, so it's not a perfect comparison, but for some context, Apple sold 14.1 million in the third quarter of 2010.

Piper Jaffray has a pretty conservative estimate of 12 million iPhones sold for the first quarter of 2011.

Of the 20-21 million phones Apple is ordering, five million to six million will use CDMA, which means they could run on Verizon's network. That gives you some idea of how many Apple believes Verizon Wireless will sell, possibly as early as the second quarter of 2011.

Apple Puts In Order For 20-21 Million iPhones For Q1 2011

Blu-ray Movie Sales up 75%

Sales of Blu-ray movies were up 75 percent year-to-year at the start of the holiday shopping season, according to Nash Information Services, and are expected to nearly double for the full year. That will come as welcome news for consumer electronics firms selling hardware, as well as for Hollywood studios anxious to sustain physical media sales.

Blu-ray is on track to be a $2 billion business this year, while the DVD business, down 13 percent through the first three quarters of the year, is expected to shrink to $8 billion.

NPD Group said that 13 percent of U.S. households had a Blu-ray player at the beginning of the holiday season, and that number could rise to 20 percent early next year, driven by a proliferation of Blu-ray players available for under $100 in this holiday season.

Blu-ray Growth Soothes Hollywood - WSJ.com (subscription required)

On the Fly Video Translation

I haven't tried this app yet, but am going to.

Display advertising: Google's Vision

Google's vision of dynamic advertising includes the ability to change offers, on the fly, based on such issues as weather.

Imagine you own a popular coffee chain in Denver that you want to promote. On Monday afternoon, it’s warm and 80 degrees in the city. You run a display ad campaign online that offers Denverites a discount coupon for an iced cold latte, with a searchable map embedded in the ad to show local branches, and a real-time feed from people who have tweeted publicly about your newest flavor.

That evening, a cold front rolls over the Rockies. Your ad automatically and dynamically adjusts to present a photo of a hot, steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of a warm fireplace, together with a home delivery number and an offer of free marshmallows.

If you live in Denver, you know a 40-degree temperature swing in a single day is quite possible. The ability to change an offer on the fly is something local advertisers have not had, up to this point.

Official Google Blog: Display advertising: towards creativity without limits

Online Video "On TVs" Lacks Ad Support

While more and more online video publishers are connecting with audiences in their living rooms with smart TV's, Blu-ray players and devices such as Roku and Google TV, advertising on these platforms is not yet in place.

Who Uses Deal-Of-The-Day Websites?

Who uses group buying or social buying sites?

You might think it is people for whom saving money is really important because they don't make as much. Actually, says Forrester Research, the three percent of U.S. consumers who frequently use deal-of-the-day sites have a lot of money to spend.

About half of them report having an average household income of $100K or more, and they expect to spend more money online this year than last year.

They are twice as likely to be influenced by what's hot and what's not, two-thirds are willing to try new things, and 62 percent agree that they often change their mind about which brand to buy after doing some research, making them the ideal target audience for deal-of-the-day sites.

But the Forrester Research data also shows that the majority of U.S. online consumers aren’t familiar with deal-of-the-day sites like Groupon or Living Social, and another 25 percent haven't used them yet.

The Data Digest: Who Uses Deal-Of-The-Day Websites?

Social Networking is Fastest-Growing App

Social networking is far and away the fastest-growing application people of most ages are adopting.

Video and audio also are noteworthy.

read more here

What People Do Online

There are generational differences in use of apps online.

"Everybody" uses email and search. You might be surprised at how high "health information" ranks.

Apparently, for most people that is a more frequent activity than using "news."

Of course, there are some things almost nobody, of any age, does.

Virtual worlds, blogging and podcasts are among those infrequent activities.

read more here

Mobile is the New "Online"

"Mobile is the new online," says analyst Paul Kedrosky. Mobile is the new ad network, the new data substrate, the new product screen, the new shopping list.

It's rapidly become the currency as well, with people more at peace with turning your mobile phone into your wallet.

But Kedrosky warns there is a serious "scaling" problem with local mobile advertising, namely the cost of reaching local advertisers to sell them programs.

There's definitely a billion-dollar hyper-local ad market but the right way to see it is there's a $15,000 local ad market. There's a whole bunch of many, many small markets.

Why Google Dropped Groupon and Local Just Doesn't Scale

Verizon FiOS TV Changes Coming?

FCC Net Neutrality Rule Creates Tiered Internet Access, Despite Not Wanting To

The Federal Communications Commission's "Open Network" rules, which inevitably will be known as the "network neutrality" rules, ironically enshrine the notion of tiered Internet access service, even when it attempts to keep the fixed-network Internet access service a "best effort only" type of product.

There are two reasons. First, the rules applying to wireless networks are more flexible. The second reason is that the rules explicitly exempt enterprise access services from the rules.

"Mass-market retail service" is covered, meaning "a service marketed and sold on a standardized basis to
residential customers, small businesses, and other end-user customers such as schools and
libraries."

"The term does not include enterprise service offerings, which are typically offered to larger organizations through customized or individually negotiated arrangements," the official document says.

That suggests we might conceivably see wireless and business access become the places where more experimentation occurs, since those are the places that differentiated access products can be created and sold.

read the whole document here