As it turns out, many Mac App Store developers are sharing details about their Mac App Store sales figures, both on their own websites and in traditional forums. Below is a selection of those results. Spoiler alert: the news is good.

Evernote:

One of the most impressive examples of how the Mac App Store's launch impacted sales came from popular note-taking app Evernote. One day after the store's launch, the company talked about the massive influx of new users it saw.

In the first few days of 2011, 166,789 new users downloaded Evernote, and since the launch of the Mac App Store, more than half of them came from the Mac. About 40,000 users signed up from the Mac so far, wrote Evernote's Phil Libin on a company blog post dated Jan. 7. This is new users only, he stressed. The actual total number of downloads from the Mac App Store was 90,000 (from store launch until midnight on opening night).

Chopper 2:

Next, there's game developer David Frampton of Majic Jungle Software, makers of a top paid app, Chopper 2. He told MacRumors that Chopper 2 saw nearly 30,000 copies sold from the Mac App Store during opening day, which equated to a revenue stream of over $20,000. 

LittleFin:

LittleFin Software, makers of a home inventory app called Compartments, was seeing an average of six to 10 sales per day prior to the Mac App Store's launch. In preparation for the launch, the development shop lowered the price from $24.95 to $9.95, in the hopes of attracting a larger audience.

As it turned out, Apple liked the app, selected it as a Staff Pick and listed it on the Great Mac Apps page. On launch day, LittleFin sold 1,500 copies of the inventory app, and over the next two days, it continued to sell around 1,000 copies each.

A second app, Chronicle, was not featured by Apple, but began selling 80 to 100 copies per day - 10 times its usual sales volume. The conclusion, wrote LittleFin's founder Mike Dattolo on the company blog: "lower prices can be sustainable."

"We have always wanted to price our apps lower. But when we tried that in the past, we simply couldn't get enough volume to justify it. So like other developers, we were a little nervous about the potential for a race to the bottom in the Mac App Store, even though we came in with reduced prices ourselves," he said. "The removal of purchase barriers (everyone has an Apple ID) and the huge potential audience of the Mac App Store is providing enough volume that we can offer lower prices. Of course, our apps are simple, and belong at low price points."

RealMacSoftware:

RealMacSoftware, makers of web design software RapidWeaver, plus utilities like Courier and LittleSnapper, reported it sold 5,000 apps on the first day of launch. But, "as with with every product launch, unit sales will tail off," noted a recent company blog post. "The Mac App Store is no different." However, the development firm is now watching to see if the average daily run-rate for apps increases gradually over time.

For now, Courier is the only app exclusive to the Mac App Store, but the company plans to release LittleSnapper 2 and RapidWeaver 6 as App Store exclusives. Despite the tapered-off sales, the firm still considers the Mac App Store worthwhile, apparently.

DaisyDisk:

According to a post on Appstorm, the utility DaisyDisk, despite not being featured, saw a big surge in interest: in first three days, the company sold a tenfold increase in sales from its own site.

iBank:

Financial management application iBank also saw great sales after its Mac App Store debut, but wasn't sure if it could contribute them to the store itself. Said Scott Marc Becker, the managing director of IGG Software, "After just these first few days, I can't say whether sales at our site are up as a result of our visibility in the Mac App Store - they've been running really high, as they typically do this time of year," he said.

Markcircle:

Another development firm, Marketcircle, maker of apps for small business told Appstorm that it saw a three-fold increase in regular daily sales of its Billings app. But because some of its products require the use of background processes and headless servers, forbidden by the Mac App Store's rules, it cannot sell exclusively through the store at this time.

Real Figures from Those Further Down in the Charts

Of course, not everyone is a multi-app development firm, staffed with employees, or with a user base of tens of thousands. What about the smaller developers?

MacRumors tracked some opening day results, culled from this forum thread on Unity3d.com. These included:

• 4x4 Offroad Racing ($3.99): 93 units sold for a total of $371, ranked #76
• Bubble Bang ($2.99): 17 units sold for a total of $51, ranked #150
• Light Quest ($9.99): 3 units sold for a total of $30, ranked #173
• Bubblez ($2.99): 7 units sold for a total of $21, unranked (not in top 180)

That forum post has been updated since the original blog post, however. Additional opening day figures now include:

• Blush ($2.99): 452 units sold
• Off-Road Velociraptor Safari ($2.99): 128 units
• Crane Wars ($2.99): 101 units sold
• Time Donkey ($2.99): 13 units sold
• StuntMANIA ($4.99): 622 units sold opening day, 709 on the 2nd day
• Guns of Icarus: 449 units sold
• Galactic Gunner ($0.99): 194 units sold
• Age of Tribes ($1.99): 220 opening day, 258 the following day; now lowered price to $0.99

Even more interesting are the updated reports from these developers, some of whom say their sales increased on days after opening day.

"Stuntman Bob is selling well...and yup, better on day 2 than on day 1," wrote one developer, who said he sees the game as a "public beta" since it's his spare time project.

The developer of Offroad, Bubble Bang and Bubblez, saw sales increase when he lowered them for a weekend sale at $0.99 each. By day 3, they were at:

• 4x4 Offroad: 364
• Bubble Bang: 55
• Bubblez: 29

StuntMANIA, which got a Staff Favorites pick, quickly jumped to #21 overall in the Mac App Store in the U.S. The developer reported that on Jan. 14, it had its biggest sales day since launch: 1121 units.

And when 4x4 received a similar promotion (New & Noteworthy pick), its sales went up too.

What this all means, is that, for the most part, the trend with the Mac App Store seems to be a surge of new users upon launch, followed by steady or tapered-off sales afterwards. However, being promoted by Apple in some way on the store, as always, will send a second rush of new users. Many developers are even choosing to sell their apps exclusively through the store, like image editor Pixelmator, for example, which detailed its Mac App Store transition on its blog.

It will be interesting to revisit these results after a longer period of time, like a quarter, or half a year, to see if these trends continue. In the meantime, it appears that the outlook is good. Very good.

The lineup of Apple-owned applications that make up the service includes "Concierge," a push-enabled app used by employees to receive notifications of customers with appointments entering the store and an app called "Scout" used by managers to establish precise physical locations within the store as part of the setup process.

How Customer Check-ins Will Work

This news comes from Macstories.net, an Apple news and reviews site with the launch exclusive. According to their article, the service went live Monday in Apple's retail stores.

In addition to receiving check-in notices from customers, employees can also use the "Concierge" app to check on the lineup of customers waiting to be seen, based on appointment times and what time they checked in. The queue where this activity is managed is called - you'll never guess - yes, the "iQueue."

"Scout," meanwhile, is the configuration utility that is used just once by management to establish the various locations within the retail store itself (e.g. "the iMac table," "Genius Bar," etc.) It allows for close proximity check-ins. Macstories did not say whether or not Apple has installed specialized hardware in its stores to allow for this, but that seems likely to us.

Yes, Those Mockups Look Odd

Another Apple-watching blog, AppleInsider, also posted on this news. They noticed the screenshots posted on Macstories were wrapped in an iPhone 4 case, but displayed the word "iPod" at the top. However, upon contacting the original article's author, Cody Fink, this was an error on his part. Fink confirmed that he wrapped the original images sent to him for better presentation on the Web. Fink has now added an update to the blog post to clarify.

Update Your Apple Store App!

On the consumer end, there isn't going to be a new mobile application to download. Instead, an updated Apple Store application will integrate the new functionality. The updated app will ask customers upon entering a store if it can send a push notification alerting store staff to their arrival.

We just checked the app updates on our iPhone 4, and it appears the new functionality has gone live this morning.

According to the update description, this feature will only be available to users with iOS 4, the latest version of the iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad mobile operating system.

The full description also makes mention of a few other new features, too. It reads:

What's New in Version 1.1

- Add engraving and gift wrapping to select purchases from the Apple Online Store.
- Reserve products for pickup at an Apple Retail Store.
- Check in for reservations and request help within stores (iOS 4 required).
- Add Apple Retail Store reservations directly to iCal.

Please note: With Location Services on and the Apple Store app open, Apple will use your location to identify nearby Apple Retail Stores and to offer additional services when you are in a store. If you have previously opted into the Apple Store app using location but do not want this new feature, you can update your Location Services preferences in General Settings.

AAP Reports Publisher Book Sales for August

Image credit: Flickr user GoXunuReviews.

Part of this projected increase is due to the launch of additional "app stores" worldwide, including those in large markets like China and India. However, cautions the report, just mimicking Apple's model alone may not be enough. "Customers are buying the iPhone for the apps," says report author Dr. Windsor Holden. "That's not been the case with other handsets."

The report specifically makes mention of app store efforts from China Unicom, India's Bharti and the Vodafone 360 app and games shop, the latter available on 247 mobile networks in more than 60 countries. Also mentioned is GetJar, a cross-platform mobile application store which just exceeded 1 billion downloads last month.

Although perhaps not a household name yet, GetJar offers around 65,000 applications (compared to Apple's 225,000, for example). The company aims to triple its revenue over the course of the next year, double its workforce and make its online store more reliable and user-friendly, GetJar CMO Patrick Mork told the Wall St. Journal in June.

25 Billion by 2015...or 50 Billion by 2012? Conflicting Reports Confuse

In that same article, Mork said consumers would download 7 billion applications to their handsets in 2009, a number much higher than that reported by Juniper today. He also said that 50 billion apps would be downloaded in 2012, a number twice as large as the one being reported for 2015 by Juniper's report.

Mork didn't pull those numbers out of thin air, however. They come from a report GetJar commissioned, released in March. Consulting firm Chetan Sharma Consulting performed an independent study which predicted a year-over-year growth rate of 92% for mobile app downloads, with an economy that would generate $17.5 billion in sales by 2012.

Whether or not you want to believe those numbers or the more conservative predictions from Juniper, however, is up to you. We feel more comfortable with Juniper's numbers, though, over those from a commissioned study financed by an app store company.

Don't Just Copy Apple

Juniper's report also warns that simply copying the Apple "iTunes App Store" model may not be enough to encourage developers to build apps for a particular platform. (Case in point: Palm's webOS or Nokia's OVI store, perhaps?) Instead, an app store would need to demonstrate sufficient scale in order for developers to get involved.

After noting that people are buying the iPhone specifically for the apps, Holden said the same may not be true for other mobile manufacturers. "Even if you have a subscriber base of tens of millions," says Holden, "your addressable market is a fraction of that - and spread across a variety of operating systems and handsets."

Also according to Holden, "freemium" is now becoming the prevalent business model for mobile applications, with in-app purchases, subscription services, micropayments for virtual items and upgrades to premium content as the method for monetizing a developer's efforts.

Oddly enough, it's also the launch that seems to have had the most technical issues as well, like, for instance, the antenna reception problems Apple confirmed both officially and unofficially last week. Holding the phone in a particular way leads to a weakened signal and sometimes even dropped calls, according to numerous reports from new users, testers, gadget blogs and mainstream media news outlets.

Sorry, Says Apple CEO

"We apologize to those customers who were turned away because we did not have enough supply," Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted as saying in this morning's release containing the sales numbers.

The CEO, however, was not as apologetic a few days prior when responding via email - his new unofficial channel to speak and react to public inquiry - to a consumer's complaint about antenna performance. "Just avoid holding [the iPhone] in that way," he suggested to the email's writer.

Meanwhile, officially, the company downplayed the antenna issues. "Gripping any mobile phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance," a company spokesperson told media outlets last week.

Issues Aside, iPhone 4 Sells

Today, unconfirmed rumors circulating through tech blogs hint that Apple may be close to releasing a software update that will fix the antenna weakening issue, a problem previously thought to be related to the device's hardware design itself. The new iPhone 4 places the antenna outside the phone in a stainless steel band circulating the device. According to various sources, though, the hardware may not be at fault after all. Instead, forum postings on the Apple.com website (now removed, of course), supposedly confirmed that a software fix for the reception issues would ship early this week.

Yet, despite these problems and other less prevalent reports of screens with yellow streaks or the occasional misplaced volume button, the iPhone 4 has outsold not only its rivals, but other iPhones (and iPads!) too.

To put the numbers in historical perspective, in 2008 Apple sold 1 million iPhone 3G devices within the same time frame (three days) as the iPhone 4. Last year, the company again sold 1 million of the 3GS model iPhones during its opening weekend. iPads, on the other hand, took a little longer to reach the million mark: 28 days, to be precise. After another 29 days, Apple had sold 2 million iPads and then 3 million after 80 days.

Today, however, Sprint is saying its original report was in error. Sales numbers were actually in line with the number of Instinct and Pre devices sold over the first three days on the market combined, not greater.

In response to both the announcement and further research, BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk told Reuters that he was cutting his estimate of first weekend sales to 150,000 units from the earlier estimate of 250,000 to 350,000. He also said that calls placed to 20-plus stores indicated inventory shortages, so that number is not expected to rise much further during the first week of sales.

New Number: Not Bad, but Not Breath-Taking...

Still, 150,000 isn't a bad number - it just might not be as earth-shattering as once thought. To put it in comparison with other recent smartphone launches, it's better than the Droid, which sold 100,000 units its first weekend, and far better than the Palm Pre, which sold an estimated 50,000 units its launch weekend. It even holds up fairly well against the launch of the original iPhone, which sold an estimated 270,000 units, which was similarly on one carrier in one country (the U.S). However, the iPhone's number didn't include Sunday sales, which were on the start of a new quarter. Counting those too may mean that Apple sold as many as 400,000 units when the original iPhone launched. Later iPhone revisions, including the iPhone 3G, sold more than a million units during their first weekends, but those sales included additional countries outside the U.S. and multiple carriers, so it's not as fair of a comparison.

That being said, the new EVO has already attracted its legion of fans, thanks not only to its rich feature set but also its base operating system, Google Android, a mobile OS which offers several features the newly renamed Apple mobile OS, iOS, does not. Still, the EVO may not be the so-called "iPhone killer" many had hoped for, mainly due to battery life concerns that even has high-profile tech bloggers like TechCrunch's Mike Arrington and Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan recommending against its purchase.

But in January, coincidentally (or not?) the same month that Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced the forthcoming tablet computer dubbed the iPad, netbook sales took a nose dive. But by nose dive, we mean they only saw 68% year-over-year growth during this time frame, the first month of the new year. That's not actually all that bad, is it? It only looks bad in comparison to the incredible numbers netbooks saw last summer.

But what's more telling is that the numbers continued to trend downwards since then: 53% in February, 25% in March and a meager 5% in April.

Did consumers rush out and buy iPads instead of netbooks? Or do they plan to at some point, a decision which is now affecting netbook sales?

Considering that the pre-iPad month of December saw a still respectable 179% year-over-year growth for the netbook market, it's hard not to draw comparisons between Apple's news and the netbook market as a whole. Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty certainly does, claiming the tanking sales are "collateral damage," says DeWitt, from Apple's tablet announcement and launch.

iPad Cannibalizing Other Markets

In case you're still not convinced that this correlation is also causation, Huberty digs up a Morgan Stanley/Alphawise survey from March focused on consumer buying intent. Here, she found that 44% of U.S. consumers planned to buy an iPad instead of a notebook or netbook computer.

Apple's Initial Supply Struggles

Apple, too, was caught a little off-guard by the iPad's initial success, which led to supply issues that delayed the international launch by a month. On May 3, the company released a statement which quoted Jobs as saying that iPad "demand continues to exceed supply..." Some have claimed that Apple is creating artificial demand for the product to generate interest, but analysts believe that Apple is just having difficulty scaling up production due to manufacturing complexity. However, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall says the learning curve the company is facing is "only temporary."

Even with production delays, Apple sold 1 million iPads in 28 days, touts a recent press release - "less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with the iPhone," it reads.

Clearly, there is still a pent-up desire for low-cost, portable computing, but it seems the tide may be shifting from netbook-sized "totables" to touch-screens.

Based on the strong U.S. demand for Apple's new iPads, the company has decided it would delay the product's international release for a month.

Apple "will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10."

Piper Jaffray predicted 200,000 to 300,000 units would be sold. Sanford C. Bernstein & Company predicted 300,000 to 400,000. However, the first day has seen an estimated 700,000 of the tablets out the door. (See ReadWriteWeb's ongoing coverage of the iPad launch.)

With a starting price of $499, the first weekend will have brought in approximately $350,000,000 retail. Trefis predicted on Forbes that the iPad debut would result in a 2% increase in Apple stock, but long-term rise may depend on the success of its apps offering. Apple closed on Friday, according to NASDAQ, at $235.97.

This in itself was an all-time high for the stock, according to the San Jose Mercury News, "thanks more to rumors about the iPhone than anticipation for Saturday's iPad debut."

Photo by Louise Docker

But before you read too much into these numbers, thinking that it has any meaning with regard to the Android ecosystem as a whole, think again. Android market share is growing fast - it more than doubled from September to December of last year, for example. Oh, and the Droid, Android's fastest-selling phone to date? It actually beat the iPhone by day 74, Flurry says. All this new data shows is that Google is no Apple when it comes to marketing their own device.

In January of this year, Google hosted a press event to showcase its new Nexus One phone, a HTC device sold exclusively by Google on its own website in both a carrier-specific and unlocked version. When asked if the new phone was meant to be an iPhone killer, Google Director of Mobile Platforms Andy Rubin simply replied that "choice is a good thing."

Prior to its launch, many technology insiders suspected (or rather, hoped) that the new "Google phone" would be exactly that - a killer, the first real rival to challenge Apple's dominance in the smartphone market. With features like support for multitasking, Google's own GPS navigation application, Google Voice (the VoIP app Apple banned from iTunes), a 3D photo gallery and, of course, heavy integration of Google services, the Nexus One had a feature lineup that Apple's iPhone couldn't beat.

Why Did the N1 Flop?

So what happened? Why don't the sales numbers match up with the excitement surrounding the device? The problem likely has to do with the fact that the phone is sold online only. You can't march into a store and purchase a Nexus One and, apparently, that's how most customers want to shop. Another problem is that the U.S. carrier for the N1 is T-Mobile, a much smaller network than either AT&T (iPhone) or Verizon (Droid). Also, the N1 isn't available worldwide like the iPhone is.

However, don't count the N1 out just yet. According to Google's website, it will arrive on Vodafone in Europe by spring 2010, and, in the U.S., Verizon will get a version of the device at the same time. Given how well the Droid has done for Verizon, the Nexus One may have a shot at boosting its sales soon.

Meanwhile, Android, as a platform, is doing quite well even if the Nexus One isn't. The Droid recently became the fastest-selling Android phone to date, beating myTouch 3G sales by more than four times; the Android market share has been growing by leaps and bounds; Android's application store is now the second largest, second only to Apple's iTunes; and, finally, some companies found their Android website visitors increasing by as much as 350% over the past year.

In the end, the Nexus One may not have succeeded the way Google had hoped, but clearly, Android itself has.

3 Billion in Apple App Sales? Not Exactly

While we're sure the general trend is correct as far as the growth of mobile application stores and Apple's position as the market leader, we have to agree with the note that John Gruber recently made on his blog regarding these figures. He quotes a portion of the report where analyst Chris Foresman says:

Earlier this month, Apple announced that sales had topped 3 billion; that means iPhone users downloaded 2.5 billion apps in 2009 alone. Gartner's figures show another 16 million apps that could come from other platform's recently opened app stores, giving Apple at least 99.4 percent of all mobile apps sold for the year.

Gruber notes that Apple didn't actually announce 3 billion in sales, they announced 3 billion downloads. In fact, you can see the original press release making this announcement here. Not only that, but another Gartner analyst Miguel Fontanez told us earlier this month that Apple, as a rule, does not disclose App Store revenues as a separate line item in their revenue reporting. That means that any estimation of Apple's App Store sales are just that - an estimation.

Last week, in speaking with Peter Farago of Flurry analytics to calculate App Store piracy numbers, we determined that Apple had generated approximately $750 million in sales to date. That's 3 billion downloads over the lifetime of the App Store with roughly 25% of them being paid downloads. In other words, if Gartner used the 3 billion to determine Apple's position as the market share leader in sales, then their calculations would be off.

However, as Gruber also notes, if Gartner's calculations are accurate regarding the other mobile platforms (16 million in app sales, they claim), then it's clear that Apple still has the app store to beat... even if they don't account for 99.4% of the market.

We don't expect Apple's dominant position to change anytime soon - the company has momentum. In November 2009, Apple announced they offer over 100,000 applications and by now that number has likely grown even more. However, other mobile application stores are growing quickly, too. Google's Android marketplace, for example, with its open nature unhampered by any sort of bogged-down app review process, has now topped 20,000 applications as of December. The Android mobile operating system is growing in popularity, too (usage increased 3% over the past three months), meaning it will soon be a contender for a hefty slice of that the app store pie in years to come.

We haven't heard any numbers from Sony yet, but chances are that the Sony Reader Pocket and Touch editions are also doing quite well.

But did the message get through to potential phone buyers? It appears that it did...at least according to mobile analytics firm Flurry. In their latest report, the company found that the Droid is now the fastest-selling Android phone to date, beating the sales of the myTouch 3G by more than four times.

Flurry's analytics service monitors over 10,000 mobile applications on both the iPhone and Android, or approximately two out of every three iPhone and Android handsets on the market. While obviously this isn't a look at the mobile ecosystem as a whole, it's a big enough slice to form some initial conclusions about the popularity of the latest mobile device to run Android, Google's mobile operating system.

By monitoring the new Android devices on Flurry's system, the company estimated the first-week sales for the Droid handsets as compared with both the myTouch 3G and Apple's iPhone 3GS. Although the iPhone still outsold the Droid within its first week, Flurry notes that the iPhone simultaneously launched in 8 countries worldwide while the Droid only launched in the U.S.

It's also important to note that the iPhone 3GS was just the latest model of the iPhone to arrive on the market, it is not the original device. Prior to the 3GS, the iPhone had two previous versions, the second which finally allowed for 3G cellular access and GPS capabilities. This update made the iPhone 3G a hugely popular upgrade and the company sold 1 million or so units on their opening weekend. Comparing the third generation iPhone to the first version of the Droid isn't a true "apples to apples" comparison, but on the other hand, the comparison of the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Droid is.

According to Flurry, Droid is dramatically outselling the myTouch 3G based on first week sales. That may say something about the quality of the Droid's hardware, the impact of a good marketing campaign or perhaps even people's frustrations with the iPhone's limitations. Or maybe a little of each. Then again, Verizon has nearly triple the number of subscribers as T-Mobile, so they already have a head start.

The Growing Power of Android

In the end, while we can't take any of these numbers to the bank, what we can learn is that the Android OS is making serious headway in the smartphone market. Although no one Android phone on its own may beat the iPhone, as more and more "worthy competitors" launch on numerous hardware platforms, the Android OS's install base may eventually catch up to that of the iPhone's. 

In any event, that's what Google believes. In a recent earnings call, Google CEO Eric Schmidt proclaimed that "Android adoption is about to explode," citing 12 Android phones on 32 carriers in 26 countries. Research firm Gartner predicts that the Android OS may end up ranking second worldwide by 2012. However, if more of the Android launches prove to be as successful as it appears the Droid's may be, Android may move up the charts even faster than predicted. Of course, who ends up on top all depends on Apple's next move. If the company decides to launch their phone on more carriers, all bets are off. If that's the case, Apple's market share could double, says Morgan Stanley's Kathryn Huberty. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Android would be left far behind. "Android is "backed by the power of Google's search engine," said Huberty. "Google's other up-and-coming consumer and enterprise products should make [Android] a dominant platform."

Says Ask President Scott Garrell, "Searches for coupons on Ask.com have shot up almost 50% in 2009. With the holidays approaching, we know this service will help us make an impact with our users."

In early August, ReadWriteWeb covered Yahoo's recent Deals launch. Similar to Yahoo Deals, Ask Deals aggregates coupons and sales in a separate and easy-to-use shopping channel. However, when it comes to search, Yahoo redirects users to the Yahoo Deals page while Ask blends deals directly into standard results. In an effort to save consumers time, Ask also attempts to link directly to coupons and savings that are listed up front. For example, when you search for clothing, deals are listed from best to worst in terms of percentage of discount. From here users can share deals via Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Delicious and Digg.

Sale news is available to members via the website, email and the Ask Deals Twittter account. Users can also install the Ask Deals homepage skin to see the featured "Deals of the Day". To install the skin visit Ask.com/skins.

Another interesting fact about the downstream clicks from Twitter is that very few users go from Twitter.com to retail, business, or finance sites.

Here are a few other interesting findings:

• after visiting Twitter.com, more users visit Etsy.com, the marketplace for buying all things handmade, than Amazon
• in terms of downstream clicks, CNN.com is the most popular news service on Twitter
• Yahoo Mail gets more downstream clicks than Gmail or Windows Live Mail

One caveat about this data that Hitwise does not mention, however, is that a large number of Twitter users never even visit Twitter.com because they use more fully-featured desktop or mobile clients like Twhirl, TweetDeck, or Tweetie. Hitwise obviously doesn't have access to this data, but it would be interesting to see if those Twitter users who use a Twitter client exhibit a different behavior compared to those who use the web site.