While the mobile browser accounted for more visits, research shows that the social networking app audience has grown five times faster in the past year. While the mobile browsing social networking audience has grown 24% to 42.3 million users, the mobile social networking app audience shot up 126% to 42.3 million users in the past year.

Mobile Social Networks' Audiences: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Come Out on Top

The Facebook mobile audience is fast approaching 60 million users. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn grew their mobile audiences by at least 50 percent in the past year. Facebook's numbers have risen 50% from the previous year to 57 million mobile users. Twitter's audience jumped 75% to 13.4 million users, and LinkedIn's mobile audience grew 69% to 5.5 million users.

What Does This Mean For Brands on Social Networks?

With the proliferation of daily deal sites, location-based social networks and sites like Groupon Now, which offer location-based deals-on-demand, it's increasingly important for brands to engage with their customers on social media. According to the comScore report, in August 2011 a total of 80.3% read posts from people they know personally, while 69.5% posted status updates from their mobile devices.

People are increasingly checking social networks more from their mobile devices. More than half (52.9%) read posts from organizations/brands/events. One of three mobile social networkers snagged a coupon/offer/deal, and twenty-seven percent clicked on an ad while visiting a social networking site.

A relatively new entrant into this chart is Alibaba.com, a Chinese Internet retail vendor. It had 156.7 million users to come in third at 11.3%. China has the largest base of Internet users of any country in the world, and it is drawing heavily from the Asia Pacific region, with 85.7% of its visitors coming from the region. One interesting note from comScore's research is that it seems to have pinned the approximate number of global Internet users at 1.38 billion and change. Web-based retail has been a major force in the U.S. for more than a decade but is just now starting to change how the rest of the world interacts with consumer products.

In its release, comScore notes that online retail is exploding across the world.

"While retail e-commerce has already grown to become a $150+ billion annual industry in the U.S., it still presents enormous upside opportunity across much of the globe," said Gian Fulgoni, comScore co-founder and chairman. "Technology has changed the way consumers behave, and increasingly they are opting for the convenience and pricing advantages offered by the online channel. Several global retail brands have already capitalized on this global consumer trend, and many other retailers are sure to pursue their share of the pie."

In a testament to how big the PC and cellular device market is becoming, both Apple and Hewlett-Packard are in the top 10 of online retail sites. Apple comes in fourth worldwide with 134.2 million visitors. Presumably, that includes iTunes, the iOS and Mac App Stores as well. HP is a bit of a surprising member of this list because it has no real popular application store to speak of, yet still had 38.4 million visitors in June, of which 45.1% were from North America. Wal-Mart is a strong online retailer, coming in sixth worldwide with 83.4% of its traffic derived from North America also.

The research was based on comScore's Media Metrix service that brings together panel-based and server-based analytics for a fuller picture of a site's worldwide traffic. The research does not include visits from public computers that can be found in libraries or Internet cafes, nor visits from mobile devices, so these numbers are probably a bit (if marginally so) lower than the actual amount of visitors.

So much for the idea of check-in and location-based games being a fad. ComScore says that 12.6 million smartphone owners used check-in services like Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places. ComScore says that the check-in fervor is driven primarily by open by early adopters, who have "a high propensity for mobile media usage, including accessing retail sites and shopping guides, and displayed other characteristics of early adopters, including a stronger likelihood of owning a tablet device and accessing tech news, when compared to the average smartphone user."

The study finds that check-in users tend to be young with 18 to 24 year olds (26%) and 25 to 34 year olds (32.5%) making up more than half of all users. They tend to be students (23.3%) and have full-time jobs (46.4%).

Android users account for the largest share of check-in users with 36.6% versus iPhone users at 33.7%. BlackBerry came in third at 22% with Palm, Sybmian and Windows all account for less than 5% (see chart). Of total mobile users who check-in (16.7 million), about three out of four do so with a smartphone.

The group shows the classic early adopter warning signs. They access tech news via mobile device (40.3%) and 28.2% own a media tablet, both significantly higher than the average mobile user.

The combined install base of Apple's triumvirate is 37.9 million, according to comScore. That far outreaches the Android install base (which includes smartphones and tablets like the Galaxy Tab) by 59%, as the Google operating system's install base is approximately 23.8 million devices.

"These data clearly illustrate the Apple ecosystem extends far beyond the iPhone," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior VP of mobile in a comScore press release. "Though it's frequently assumed that the Apple user base is composed of dedicated Apple 'fanboys', there's not a tremendous amount of overlapping mobile device access among these users. This of course has significant implications for the developer community as they consider the market potential in developing applications for different mobile platforms."

As interesting as comScore's numbers are, they do not tell the whole picture. Really, it depends on what analyst firm or earnings call you are listening to on a particular day to tell you what the "news" is in the mobile OS wars. Market blog Asymco has some interesting numbers on growth rates that were posted on April 18 that clearly show Apple has the larger number of units sold in the lifespan of iOS and Android (Apple came about 15 months before), but that the rate of Android growth has been shooting straight up the chart while iOS has grown steadily but in fits and starts.

Horace Dediu of Asymco predicts that Android will overtake the iOS install base within a year if the current rate of growth stays the same. With the coming flood of Android tablets coming to market, and the slate market predicted to grow exponentially in the next several years, Android could very well take over iOS by spring 2012.

Twitter in Brazil: Highest Penetration in the World

Twitter is the fourth most popular social network in Brazil with about 8.6 million visitors in August. The service reaches about 23% of the Brazilian online population. According to comScore, this is the highest Twitter penetration in the world. Twitter is especially popular among younger users (15 to 24), while Facebook's popularity in Brazil is higher among older users (25 and over).

It is also interesting to note how popular the relatively new Q&A site formspring.me has become in Brazil. There, the service gets about 3.6 million visitors per month - making it the fifth most popular social network in the country.

Can Orkut Hang On to Its Top Position?

Due to the popularity of Orkut, Brazil has always been a slightly different market for social networks. Given the growing popularity of Facebook, however, we will have to see if Orkut can hang on to its top position in the long run.

Users spent 41.1 billion minutes on Facebook in August, 39.8 billion minutes on Google, and 37.7 billion on Yahoo. Yahoo beat out Google in monthly traffic, with 179 million unique visitors to Google's 178.8 million. Microsoft came in third with 165.3 million.

You could take this data point as another unfavorable juxtaposition between the massive, institutional corporation and the spunky hacker-centric newcomer. But Facebook and Google have had similarly rapid growth in time spent since 2006 as AOL sites declined dramatically and Microsoft sites declined slightly, suggesting they have more similarities than differences.

And this doesn't mean advertisers will jump ship from Google to Facebook. Some advertisers will more readily buy a search ad, where a user is looking for something specific and scanning the page for what she wants, rather than advertise on Facebook next to a bunch of interesting content that a user is very absorbed in. Or some advertisers may be shilling something with a social bent, and prefer Facebook.

However, Google may be feeling some heat with these new numbers. ComScore tracks traffic for Google sites, not just Google.com, which includes YouTube - and Facebook is now the third largest video site.

Right now, users can increase the amount of time they spend on Google and Facebook; they just have to start spending more total time online. But at some point, total time spent on the Internet will max out (we hope, although in theory you could be on mobile and wireline connections all day and then hook yourself up to the Internet of Things at night to track your snoring). When that happens, minutes spent where will become a zero sum game - if Facebook gains share of users' time, it will mean time not spent on other sites. That's when the competition will really get fierce.

What do you think? Should Google feel threatened by Facebook or Yahoo?

Bing launched in June 2009 with 8.9 percent of searches, the share of the market that had been going through Microsoft's Live search, and climbed to 12.7 percent by June 2010. But Bing's growth slowed in July, according to comScore.

Google lost 1 percent of the market in the same period but still grabs 61.6 percent of searches. Yahoo! gained 1.2 percent to claim 20.1 percent of searches. Ask.com lost .1 percent, leaving it with 3.5 percent of the market, and AOL was unchanged with 2.2 percent of the market.

But Yahoo! has already started switching over its search backend to be powered by Bing. The transition could give Microsoft control over almost a third of the market, making it a healthy competitor to Google.

The increased exposure brought about by the "powered by Bing" graphic that would appear on Yahoo! sites could also kick more searches Bing's way.

It's also interesting to note that this report is the first to include comScore's new metric, "explicit core searches," designed to measure only searches performed intentionally by users. ComScore was concerned that the practice of linking users directly to search results was inflating market share for some search engines.

Using the new metric, Google claims 65.8 percent of searches, Yahoo! 17.1 percent and Bing 11 percent.

ComScore has been publishing search market share reports since 2003, but there are other reports that contradict its numbers - numbers just released by analytics firm Chitika show Google with a whopping 81 percent of the market, Bing with 11 percent and Yahoo with just six percent.

Fox Launches Mobile Hulu-esque Subscription Service

Fox Interactive Media, which ranks 9th on comScore's top 10 based on total videos served, announced today that it is taking a stab at mobile video subscription service with what it calls Bitbop. Is it an iPhone app? No. An Android app? No. A mobile website? No. It's an application for the BlackBerry.

BitBop, available on the BlackBerry Bold, Curve and Tour models, is a free application that allows users to watch many of the same TV shows and movies they know from Hulu directly on their phones. While the app is free to download, it comes with a subscription fee - $9.99 a month - to access content. Family Guy, The Office, 30 Rock, Glee, CSI, Friday Night Lights - all the major players are present and accounted for.

If you're asking yourself why the service is only available on the Blackberry - and why wouldn't you - it's because Fox has inked an exclusive deal with BlackBerry makers RIM (Research In Motion). It's a curious partnership, since the majority of BlackBerry owners use their devices mainly for work and enterprise functionality - not exactly the kind of people who are more like to watch online video on their mobile device, if you asked me.

Still, it will be interesting to see how it plays out and if Fox can boost their low video market share numbers. There is certainly a market for on-demand mobile video - the success of Netflix's iPad app and the anticipation of its iPhone app can speak to that thread. Whether that market is on BlackBerry devices is yet to be seen, but this partnership could bode well for both parties.

Also, ComScore posed this question to everybody who responded to the survey, including those who weren't planning to buy the device and maybe weren't even really aware of it. This explains why only 26% answered that they would download apps from the iTunes store while 30% said that they would play arcade and puzzle games - which, after all, they would have to download from the store. Given these caveats, it's worth taking this data with a grain of salt, even if it does point towards some interesting conclusions.

iPad vs. Kindle

For publishers, the fact that around 35% of respondents said that they would use the iPad for reading magazines and books should be encouraging. With regards to activities on the iPad that would involve e-commerce, e-books and e-magazines rank higher than playing games and are on par with listening to music and watching videos.

Even though the iPad is getting all the hype today, that doesn't mean consumers aren't still considering dedicated e-readers like the Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook and Sony's line of e-readers. According to ComScore's data, about 15% of U.S. Internet users are seriously considering to buy an iPad within the next 3 month and 14% are considering to buy a Kindle. Interestingly, when it comes to awareness about these devices, 65% of respondents were aware of the iPad and just as many were aware of the Kindle. It's worth noting, though, that the iPad isn't even available yet, while the Kindle has been around for a few years now and has become synonymous with "e-reader" for a lot of people. We should also note that ComScore's numbers refer to "aided awareness." It would be interesting to see these numbers for "unaided awareness" as well.

For a closer look at what magazines on the iPad could look like, also check out this survey by our own Sarah Perez.

Worldwide, Internet users conducted over 131 billion searches in 2009. Every day, people over 15 around the world conducted about 3.6 billion searches. That's almost 25 million searches conducted per minute.

According to comScore, Internet users in the U.S. conducted the highest number of searches on the top 10 search engines in 2009. U.S. Internet users over 15 conducted over 22 billion searches last year, followed by China (13 billion) and Japan (9 billion).

Just yesterday, we reported that traffic analyst firm Hitwise's latest data shows that the traffic to social networks in Australia is getting to the point where it will soon surpass traffic to search engines. Judging from these numbers, even if social networks pass search in terms of traffic at some point, search still has a lot of headroom to grow and will continue to do so in the near future.

Flurry announced the partnership on the heels of its merger with Pinch Media last month. The service boasts a nearly ubiquitous presence in the mobile market and will add a host of real-time data to comScore's reports.

That's 9,700 more developers than the company started with just a year ago.

Using Flurry's data, comScore will add "real-time consumption data, including frequency of use, length of use, user geographic location, new vs. repeat usage and Wi-Fi vs. carrier network usage" to its mobile application data.

Flurry provides a variety of information including what types of applications users are most likely to continue using over time and return to frequently, as shown in the following graphic. This data can then be used by companies to lure potential advertisers or by advertisers looking for potential targets.

In a market that's only going to see growth, some, like Om Malik, are already predicting Flurry's acquisition by a big-time player in the near future. Analytics remains hot, as evidenced further by this morning's news of a $27.5 million investment in comScore-competitor Quantcast by Cisco and Polaris Ventures.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has weighed in on the subject, stating that the interaction between microblogging and what he's calling "megablogging" is hardly a zero-sum game. "It's not really a 'versus,' it's an 'and'," he wrote.

Here's a chart showing data similar to comScore's:

As you can see, Twitter.com's growth rate for unique site visitors is slowing, while WordPress.com's site stats continue to grow. Does this signal the supposed "death of blogging" trend is coming to an end? Mullenweg certainly doesn't think so.

He notes that because the question is more one of cooperation than competition, the folks at WordPress are actually trying to create more opportunities for overlap between various platforms. "Features like WP.me, post by email, Twitter publicize, RSS Cloud, P2, email subscriptions, and more stuff in the cooker is trying to tie these things together more because people who do one are highly likely to do another," he said.

Moreover, many readers would question the validity of data for Twitter.com, since the website is, for many users, a secondary or even tertiary method of accessing the service. Between mobile and desktop apps, stats for Twitter.com really don't reflect how many people are using the service.

Should comScore and other domain statistics analyses be thrown out of these conversations? 'I would say they probably are precise but not accurate," wrote Mullenweg. "For WordPress.com, they don't count the custom domains or RSS readers; and for Twitter they don't count API usage or desktop clients."

Ultimately, comScore data are one way to compare site traffic, but in the age of APIs, they're hardly useful for tracking the actual number of active users for a particular service.

So, we're curious to know, do you blog, tweet, or both? And are you more likely to use Twitter.com or a mobile or desktop application? Let us know, and give us your feedback in the comments.

In total, the average viewer watched about 135 video clips. While full-length shows are becoming more popular, it is still important to note that the average video is only 3.7 minutes long. Hulu, which focuses on full-length TV shows, also recorded its best month yet, with 457 million views.

Another Record-Breaking Month

June, according to comScore, already broke most records, but at that time, the company credited the surge to the large number of high-profile events (including the death of Michael Jackson and the elections in Iran). ComScore argues that TV viewers are turning to the Internet right now because most of the shows on TV are currently on summer hiatus. While this probably plays some role in this current growth in interest in online video, we would also argue that a lot of viewers are simply changing their viewing habits and have moved away from watching shows on traditional TV and cable networks. Instead, they are watching popular clips on YouTube and full-length shows on Hulu.

To gather its data, Nielsen monitors about 200,000 panel members, a technique that is clearly informed by Nielsen's method for gathering data about TV viewers. Other metrics companies use data from toolbars, ISPs, and other sources, though Quantcast also gives site owners the option to embed a code snippet on their pages that reports data directly to Quantcast (Hulu does so, for example, and so does RWW).

Stats Need Standards

The real problem here, of course, isn't even about knowing exactly how many people watched videos on Hulu last month (even though we have to admit that this discussion is quite interesting in its own right). Instead, this kerfuffle once again shows how hard it is to correctly estimate usage numbers on the web, especially in the absence of any real standards. As every blogger can easily attest, three different stats programs will give you three different numbers.

We have to take publicly available stats, no matter from which provider, with a grain of salt. In our experience, it is always worth looking at a number of different sources, and while the trends that these services show tend to be relatively trustworthy, the exact numbers are always open for debate.

Fred Wilson points out that Americans who accessed the Internet from their desktops and laptops were responsible for about 192 million monthly uniques, which, if we trust comScore's numbers, would mean that the mobile web is now close to 1/3 the size of the 'wired' web. Developers who ignore the mobile clearly do so at their own peril, and thanks to the rising popularity of smartphones, this trend towards accessing the Internet from mobile devices will surely only accelerate.

However, comScore also notes that while 22.3 million people accessed news and information services through a downloadable application, 32.4 million used SMS. While smartphones are indeed getting more popular, comScore also found that 70% of those users who accessed mobile Internet sources did so on standard feature phones.

CC-licensed logo image used courtesy of Flickr user bjortklingd.