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Top 20 Websites in the World {source: Google

Google  released a list of the top 1,000 sites in the world. This list is a result of new

features that Google has enabled for its AdWords clients, specifically allowing advertisers to  only show their  ads on these top 1,000 sites.

Facebook secures the top ranking globally with 570,000,000,000 page views and 540,000,000 unique visitors. This is interesting as Facebook self reports just over 400 million profiles, so at a “dirty math” level Facebook influences 35% more people that don’t even have a profile on Facebook [note: very dirty math].

It particularly piqued my interest, because when we were researching data for the Social Media Revolution 2 video (below) we only indicated Facebook topped Google in the U.S. for unique visitors (Hitwise). This now appears possibly a bit conservative – perhaps Facebook has achieved the top spot globally.

This list from Google will be updated monthly and does not include adult sites, ad networks, or Google. The fact that Google doesn’t include themselves is interesting to say the least and leads one to ask the question…do they not list themselves because they are no longer #1?

Google says the data is aggregated from Google Toolbar data, Google Analytics data, opt-in external consumer panel data, and other third-party market research.

Google can see first hand that their fiercest competition is coming from the likes of Facebook, QQ, Twitter, Wikipedia, etc.  As consumers it’s fun to see this intense battle of the big boys as it only makes our Internet offerings better.

Perception is reality.  Social Media has taken us from Word of Mouth to World of Mouth.  The biggest benefactor to date has been Facebook.  Ironically, this new found speed of information dissemination may cause Facebook’s eventual downfall.  It helps items go from perception to reality faster than you can say “status update.”

Much of Facebook’s success has been its simplicity.  MySpace allows you to customize your page and they have oodles of banners to put money into their coffers, but as we’ve seen play out this muddies the waters a bit too much for the general user.  Facebook on the other hand, kept items so easy to use that their user numbers skyrocketed as a result of dads and grandmothers joining in the fun:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user has 130 friends
• People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Yet, when it comes to privacy, Facebook seems to continue to struggle.  Going back a few years to their launch of Facebook Beacon.  This tool allowed other Facebook friends to see which purchases you made online.  For example if I purchased David Meerman Scott’s latest book it would alert my Facebook friends of this purchase.  This is a very helpful thing, the point where Facebook stumbled is they opted every user into this tool.  One famous story was the young man that purchased a diamond ring for his soon to be fiancée.  Since they were connected on Facebook she was alerted of this purchase; probably not the romantic setting they had in mind.

Today, as reported by Nick Bilton of the New York Times, Facebook’s privacy policy is longer than the U.S. Constitution.  The U.S. constitution has a paltry 4,543 words to Facebook’s 5,830.  While Facebook is trying to give their users the freedom of choice on how they “want” their specific privacy, most users just want something that is easy and safe to use.  When downloading a piece of software, how many of us click on the “advanced” settings?  Not many, just give me the default and give me comfort in knowing that is the right choice.

I believe Facebook is smart enough to restore this comfort and restore it soon.  If they don’t, it could be their eventual demise.  After all, perception is reality, and their own tool can definitely hyper-accelerate perception into reality.  Ironic, isn’t it?

It’s amazing how fast the world of social media moves!  As many of the statistics from the original Social Media video have changed, I took a moment to refresh the video with a few new statistics and graphics.  Thanks to all of you for your support in making the first Social Media Revolution and Social Media ROI videos such a huge success and I hope that you enjoy this refresh!

Stats from Video (sources listed below by corresponding #)

1. Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old
2. 96% of them have joined a social network
3. Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
4. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
5. 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
6. Years to Reach 50 millions Users:  Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…
7. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
8. iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
9. We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
10. If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
11. Yet, QQ and Renren dominate China
12. 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
13. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
14. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
15. Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the  populations of Ireland, Norway, or Panama.  Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
16. 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
17. Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé – some universities have stopped distributing e-mail accounts
18. Instead they are distributing: eReaders + iPads + Tablets
19. What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
20. The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
21. While you watch this 100+ hours of video will be uploaded to YouTube
22. Wikipedia has over 15 million articles…studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
23. There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
24. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
25. If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $1,712.32 per hour
26. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
27. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
28. Do you like what they are saying about your brand? You better.
29. People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them
30. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
31. Only 14% trust advertisements
32. Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
33. 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
34. Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas
35. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation
36. 60 millions status updates happen on Facebook daily
37. We no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
38. We will non longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media
39. Social Media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate
40. Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men Listening first, selling second
41. The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in 5 years
42. Bonus: comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network

Social Media Statistics:

Below are the sources I used to compile this video.  Keep your feedback/questions/challenges coming as it will collectively make the next video better – be social.

A huge thanks to all below:

1. Source: http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/broker http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/worldpopinfo.php  [roughly 52% based on table data] | 2010 U.S. 310,232,863 | 2010 World 6,814,609,654 | 30 and under: 3,548,760,268 / 6,814,609,654 = 52% http://sasweb.ssd.census.gov/idb/worldpopinfo.html
2. Source: Grunwald Associates National Study – Trendsspotting Blog | Millenials Conference
3. Source: Hitwise Intelligence Heather Dougherty http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/2010/03/facebook_reaches_top_ranking_i.html
4. Source: Huffington Post
5. Source: McKinsey Study also posted by David Dalka
6. Source: First Stats: United Nations Cyberschoolbus Document
7. Source for Facebook Stat: Facebook Timeline http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline Feb 2009 175 million users – Feb 2010 400 users:
8. iPhone Stat: Apple
9. Personal Quote
10. Source: Facebook and world population data
11. Source: TechCrunch
12. Source: U.S. Department of Education Study
13. Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey
14. Source: Inside Facebook Blog
15. Source: Twitter & World Population Data [Pulled 4/11: Kutcher & Spears 4,743,902 and 4,689,808 = 9,433,710] – note it’s not the combined populations of the countries listed
16. Source: The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/feb/08/facebook-rise-mobile-web-use
17. Source: Metro Commuter Newspaper
18. Source: USA Today: Should Colleges Start Giving iPads to Students? http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-04-05-IHE-colleges-give-iPads-to-students05_N.htm
19. Opinion, not a statistic
20. Source: TGDaily
21. Source:  Mashable by Ben Parr
22. Source: www.wikipedia.org - calculated based on # articles per language category; Colorado State University Wikipedia Accuracy Study; open debate and of course very biased information is also found on this Wikipedia Accuracy page.
23. Source: China Internet Information Center, Technorati, Wikipedia
24. Opinion, not a statistic
25. Source: ClickZ Stats SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
26. Calculated based of Wikipedia article data found at www.wikipedia.org
27. Source:  TechCrunchThis says 4 weeks so I may have been a little off here as my source at Facebook had said 2 weeks adjusted above
28. Source: Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics SES Magazine June 8 page 24-25 Chris Aarons, Andru Edwards, Xavier Lanier Turning Blogs and user-Generated Content Into Search Engine Results
29. Opinion, not a statistic
30. Source: July 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (actually 90% now – updated above but video still shows 78%)
31. Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
32. Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber, Wiley Publishing  2007
33. Source: Starcom USA-TiVo
34. Source: Mashable
35. Source: Solutions Research Group
36. Source: Facebook Stats
37. Opinion, not a statistic
38. Opinion, not a statistic
39. Opinion, not a statistic
40. Opinion, not a statistic
41. Opinion, not a statistic
42. comScore
43. Music in video provided by Fatboy Slim “Right Here, Right Now” (1999) – if you like it buy the single

To watch videos with millions of YouTube views and deservedly so, please check out Karl Fisch and Scott McCleod’s Did You Know? And Shift Happens videos on YouTube.  If you are like me you will love them!

Also, if you haven’t seen Marta Kagan’s “What The F**K is Social Media” presentation,  it’s amazing! Many of the same eye-popping facts are contained in it – as well as many more.  Plus, it does a much better job of providing insight than my video which is designed to grab attention.  Kagan’s presentation informs, check it out!

Roughly 52% of the world’s population is under 30-years-old.*  It is estimated that the U.S. population of 310 million equates to 4.5% of the world population.  Meanwhile, China’s population of 1.33 billion represents almost 20% of the world population.  Please note that Google and Facebook don’t dominate China like they do other parts of the world, rather Baidu, QQ and Renren lead the way.

Over 50% of the world's population is under 30 (U.S. Census Bureau | Click to Enlarge)

Looking at the population in five year windows reveals that 0-4 years-old is the largest segment.  This intuitively makes sense from a death rate perspective in developing countries.  As we look at the ages of anyone over 10 and under 60 the largest group is those 20-24 years of age.  The smallest group are those 55-59.

U.S. Data

If we are to drill down into the U.S. data it differs from the world population in the fact that the 20-24 year-olds are the third largest segment after the segments of  1) 45-49 and 2) 50-54.  96% of Generation Y indicate they have used social media tools (Source: Trendspotting).  Not sure how the other 4% somehow have avoided social media, but we will leave that for another day. The life expectancy of someone born in the U.S. today is 78.

According to this data it’s predicted that Generation Y will outnumber Baby Boomers in July, 2010 (based on Census Bureau Projections).  There is much debate on which years define each generation, but even running the numbers numerous ways shows that Generation Y will outnumber Boomers.  If you define Generation Y or Millennials as being born between 1980-2000 (10-30 year olds in 2010) the population equals 82,576,000.  The way the Census bureau breaks out data in 5 year increments this window keeps the data “whole.”  For Baby Boomers if you run the numbers to how the census bureau defines a Boomer  as the years 1946-64 (ironically people aged 46-64 in 2010) the population equals 79,590,000.  If you define boomers like William Strauss and Neil Howe as being born from 1943-1960 (50-67 years of age in 2010) the population equals 69,522,000 and that is giving the boomers two extra years (50-69 years of age in 2010).

How Do I Live to 100? – Be Social

For kicks here are some bold predictions*:

1. Facebook’s main competition may come from China
2. Physical paper newspapers will be done by 2014
3. Television as we know it today will be done by 2016 (served over IP)

Oh, and one last thing.  While Males start out as the larger population (107 index) females live longer and flip this (Male index goes from 107 to 23) by the time they are 100.  One of the top characteristics doctors have determined of centenarians (people that live to be 100) is that they have active social lives.  Isn’t it appropriate that females will be carrying the social torch for years to come?

In a recent decision, Facebook users will no longer be able to click a “Become a Fan” button for a page or brand, rather they will click “like” button for a brand or page.  My opinion is that there are 3 reasons for this change:

1. Increased consistency and simplicity of Facebook terminology for its users.

2. Facebook has determined that “like” is more clicked on than “become a fan” of this page or brand.  This is important because once Facebook launched the capability for advertisers to include a clickable button on their paid Facebook ads stating “become a fan” and that this button was also trackable for the client; Facebook paid ads are often judged on how many fans they receive for how much money was being spent.  Obviously it’s in Facebook’s best interest for ads to perform well, so if the barrier to clicking is mitigated by switching to “like” than it makes monetary sense for Facebook to do so.

3. Facebook is ready to launch the capability for users to click the “like” button when they aren’t on Facebook.  In other words if you are on www.gm.com or www.snickers.com you can click a button indicating that you “like” the page.  This helps expand Facebook’s influence beyond www.facebook.com and is also helpful to the user.

There are some distinct benefits in the above list and as a whole it’s the right move.  However, one thing that I will miss, as David Berkowitz astutely points out, is that it is nice for companies to have a sense to who their true fans/loyal customers are.  Although only a slight semantic change, ”like” reduces the barrier to entry.  Just think about your current behavior on status updates, isn’t it much easier to click “like” on a status update?  So, we should see an increase in the amount of people that “like” a brand/product/movie/church/etc. but it was nice that at one point in time we knew who the hardcore fans really were.  What do you think?

Many business travelers love their favorite eReader (Nook, Kindle, Sony eReader, etc.) because of the convenience.  This is very similar to when we turned in our bulky music CD cases (sorry Case Logic) for lighter and more elegant iPods.  As we peer into the future, the thing that excites me the most about eReaders, iPads, etc. is the social component.  One quick example is:

When I went to college and purchased a used book I’d spend a few minutes sifting through the various copies before placing one into my plastic basket. After selection, I hoped and prayed that the person who took the notes in the margins and highlighted certain passages was smart.  Sure, I had my own system, a tattered book was better than a fresher looking one as I assumed it was read more.  I also equated neat handwriting and color coded highlighting as a sign of aptitude.  Not a perfect system by any means, but it got me through college.

With the sharing capability of eReaders though, buying used books will quickly become a thing of the past.  How great will it be to have one tiny eReader or iPad to tote around campus rather than straining the straps of backpack loaded with books?  Also, I will be able to perform quick digital searches and sorts for all the notes from the A+ students.  Imagine the improved knowledge transfer from student to student.  This is what excites me about the future world of education being enabled by social components of eReaders/iPads and I hope it excites you too.

Per a recent tweet from Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales (see image below) Google will be donating $2 Million dollars to the Wikimedia Foundation.

In a recent tweet by Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales, Google will be donating $2 million to the Wikimedia Foundation

For those avid users of Wikipedia we have recently seen an increase in banner announcements on Wikipedia asking for donations; the popular international resource had started to bump up against monetary struggles.   This donation is a welcome one for Wikipedia as well as Wikipedia uses.  Imagine life without Wikipedia?  What would we do?  What would that mean?

The donation is also an interesting one on many levels.  For years Wikipedia pages in Google’s search engine results often captured the #1 listing.  However several years ago when Wikipedia indicated they were going to increase their search capabilities/efforts the Wikipedia results in Google curiously became less prominent and Google then instituted a “no follow” policy on links within Wikipedia.  What this means is that links from a Wikipedia article to an outside source no longer carried “weight” or “link juice” with Google’s algorithm (ex:  If there was a link for running shoes to adidas.com the Google algorithm wouldn’t reward this link it its ranking algorithm).  Now this “no follow” policy was probably more related to link spamming issues and probably helped Wikipedia, but it is an interesting footnote in their short history.

Does this also signal the end to Google’s Knol?  If you remember, Knol was Google’s effort to replace Wikipedia.  You probably don’t remember as it didn’t catch-on with the public.

We may find out more answers today.   The good news is this is a huge wind in Wikipedia’s sales and kudos to Google for helping to promote in open Web via their generous donation.  However, what piece of the Web does Google not have its hand in?

There is further insight from Ben Parr at Mashable here.

I had some fun this week in my ClickZ column by highlighting the best in brightest in the social media field.  You can find the detailed article here: Social Media All-Stars

As the title showcases I selected 10 Social Media All-Stars for each team.  You can see these All-Stars in the images on this post, or the list is below.  Pete Cashmore is such a social media rockstar that he would throw out the first pitch:

American League All-Star Team:

• Gary Vaynerchuk: @garyvee
• Brian Solis: @briansolis
• Mari Smith:  @MariSmith
• Shiv Singh: @shivsingh
• Clay Shirky: @cshirky
• Peter Shankman: @skydiver
• David Meerman Scott: @dmscott
• Jeremiah Owyang: @jowyang
• Lee Odden: @LeeOdden
• Dave Morin: @davemorin

National League All-Star Team

• Scott Monty: @scottmonty
• Valeria Maltoni: @ConversationAge
• Charlene Li: @charleneli
• Guy Kawasaki: @GuyKawasaki
• Mitch Joel:  @MitchJoel
• Brian Halligan: @bhalligan
• Seth Godin
• Paul Gillin: @pgillin
• Chris Brogan: @chrisbrogan
• Josh Bernoff: @jbernoff

Honorable Mention
Corey Perlman, Dan Zarella, Louis Gray, Richard Binhammer, Frank Eliason, Richard Binhammer, Robert Scoble, Lee Aase, Eric Bradlow, Sally Falkow, Don Steele, Julien Smith, Michael Lazerow, Sarah Hofstetter, Mack Collier, Mike Barbeau, Todd Defren, Tom Gerace, Elizabeth Pigg, Richard MacManus, Jon Gibs, Chris Cunningham, Paul Beck, Matt Goddard, Chris Heuer, CC Chapman, Chris Penn, Shel Israel, Tamar Weinberg, Larry Weber, Morgan Johnston, Tim Washer, David Armano, Nick O’Neil, Mike Stelzner, Jason Falls, Dave Kerpen,  Sonia Simone,  Adam Singer, Michael Brito, Geoff Livingston, Wayne Sutton.

I finally came across Amazon’s PayPhrase in the “wild” on my Amazon account.   It’s similar in respect to Facebook Connect in that you can start using it across the Web on various sites.  It is   much like some virtual wallets we have seen before.  The funny thing to me was how many popular phrase were already taken like:  “Carpe Diem” “Go For It” “Vida la Vida” “Nothing is Impossible” so, to avoid frustration, try to be original:  “Rainbow Bunny” “Sunny Fargo Beaches.”

It also promises to work as a great virtual wallet for kids/teens – the parent sets the spend limits.

In Amazon’s words:

PayPhrase is an easy-to-remember shortcut to shipping and payment information in your Amazon.com account. Use it for Express Checkout on Amazon.com and across the web. (Learn more)

Use PayPhrase on Amazon.com and many other web sites, including:

Some progressive Danish schools are allowing students to access Facebook and other social media sites during exams.  Some of the more interesting points from Judy Hobson’s BBC Column include:

• A total of 14 colleges in Denmark are piloting the new system;  all Danish schools have been invited to join by 2011
• Students can access any site they like, even Facebook, but they cannot message each other or email anyone
• Pernille Günther Jensby, 18, says:  “It’s possible to cheat but I think we have so much respect and self discipline, so we won’t do it.”
• The nature of the questions make it harder to cheat. Students are no longer required to regurgitate facts and figures. Instead the emphasis is on their ability to sift through and analyze information.

Stephen Heppell, professor of new media environments at Bournemouth University, says UK examinations need to be brought up to date: “As a nation we’ve been really good at embracing technology – we’ve been really at the forefront of doing this well in the classroom.”  However Bournemouth points out:  “Then they go into the exam room and all that’s taken away and they’re given a fountain pen and a sheet of lines paper and a three hour time limit.  It’s time to get real, isn’t it?”

Hat tip to Judy Hobson for a great article.

Do you think this is the wave of the future or a modern day “cheat-sheet?”