Tumblr: Stats, the ability to add pages, and revenue on the way

March 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’m a big fan of both Tumblr and Posterous, despite not really having the time/project to make the best use of them at the moment. So the fact that Tumblr has released a new feature, some interesting statistics and signs of new revenue streams launching soon has reignited my thoughts on how I could use the service effectively.

The new feature is the ability to add static pages – which will aid companies and bloggers looking to keep content highlighted. Adding a page is simple, with three layouts to choose from.

And it will only build on some pretty impressive statistics released today – 1 billion page views in February 2010 for starters. It also has 2 million posts every day, 15,000 new posts daily, and 18 new posts and reblogs every second.

Incidentally, 1 billion page views in February equals 36 million page views per day, 25,000 page views per minute, or 400 per second. And Tumblr has put together a nice infographic to show off the info:

Tumblr statistics February 2010

And if that isn’t enough, apparently there are also plans to unveil two new revenue generating features next month, powered by the widget mysteriously pictured below:

For a personal or simple company blog, I’d definitely recommend checking out Tumblr or Posterous. They’re easier to update than a traditional hosted blog platform (whether Blogger or WordPress), and offer as many design options etc. Ultimately a full self-hosted blog platform such as WordPress (Which this site uses) offers some additional advantages, but if you don’t want the hassle or advertising, then go with the microblogging platforms.

Filed Under: Microblogging, posterous, statistics, tumblr Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

comScore stats on mobile Twitter usage

March 7, 2010 By 3 Comments

A belated look at a recent report from comScore which shows Twitter is the fastest growing social network on mobile, with growth of 347% since 2009.

The number of users in January 2010 reached 4.7 million – compared to just over 1 million in January 2009, giving a 4.47 multiple increase. Twitter’s 347% growth compares with Facebooks 112% (But Facebook still rules with 25 million mobile users), and Myspace declining 7%.

But to be 1/5th of Facebooks size and growing 3 times as quickly shows Twitter is looking even more promising on mobile than on the fixed internet.

Filed Under: Mobile Phone Apps, statistics Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

When numbers become meaningless and dangerous

August 5, 2009 By 3 Comments

I’ve just been looking at the latest stats from comScore (Via Techcrunch), and the statistics for Facebook‘s arrival as the fourth biggest site in the world illustrated for me why site stats can become both meaningless and rather dangerous.

For starters, the numbers of the top sites are so big that we don’t really have any way of guaging them – as Eddie Izzard explains using the examples of mass murder (some NSFW swearing).

But the big problem with numbers like these is that they can become very dangerous, due to the tendency for people to quote them as law, and rely on them:

Venus Blindfolded by Gastev on Flickr (CC Licence)

Venus Blindfolded by Gastev on Flickr (CC Licence)

Reasons to worry:

  • Monitoring services like comScore and Compete can only track online traffic to domains – no clients and no apps. A particular problem at the moment for Twitter, but growing for all sites.
  • A certain percentage of users are always unquantifiable thanks to cookie deletion etc, or end up showing up different times on different computers
  • In the comScore example, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sites are bundled up into their respective companies, so you can’t tell what comes from Google Search and what comes from Orkut or Google Maps.
  • No accounting for OpenID, Facebook Connect etc.

But essentially, the big risk is:

  • Unless you’re one of the top 20 or so sites, the total number of users of Facebook, Myspace, Bebo etc won’t matter much – you’ll still be able to get 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 fans/friends. What really matters is what you want to achieve, the relevancy of the network, and how you work at building valuable relationships rather than numbers.
  • And rather than numbers, look at the interactions, or for the business minded, how many people actually buy something…

But on the bright side:

Besides the fact we can accept social networking reaches almost as far as the internet with Facebook getting 340 million uniques per year, the fact that Wikimedia Foundations sites clock in right behidn it at 303 million uniques also shows the undeniable value of crowdsourcing user generated input if it’s done relatively well.

And maybe the combination of my three blogs will crack the top 10 next year!

Filed Under: Analytics, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

A good clue to Twitter’s growth rates

August 4, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Although comScore only measures visits to Twitter.com, and more than half of Twitter users use clients and apps, it does provide a clue to Twitter’s growth rates.

In June it gained around 7 million new visitors, hitting 44.5 million unique global visitors, up 19 per cent from May 2009, and now making it the 52nd biggest site in the world (and with a 55 per cent international audience).

Techcrunch points to the Iran election as a contributor to the growth, while Mark Evans over at Twitterati somewhat confusingly uses comScore and Compete figures to calculate a 50-50 U.S and International split.

For the record, the biggest properties measured by comScore are Google sites, Microsoft sites, Yahoo sites, Facebook and Wikimedia Foundation sites.

Filed Under: twitter Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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