MD speaks with Playfish co-founder Sebastien de Halleux about how the cloud-based social gaming company has managed to distribute over 100 million games via Facebook and other social networks in less than 2 years.
Survey reveals parents more worried about their children staying safe at school than any other of the Government’s five Every Child Matters outcomes* Bullying - physical, verbal and increasingly ‘cyber’ (using mobile phones &/or the internet) - school trespassers and physical attack involving knives and guns were cited as the main areas of concern by parents.
There was a significant difference between the responses of primary and secondary schoolchildren’s parents, with 11% fewer secondary schoolchildren’s parents saying they felt their child was “very safe” at school.
YouTube’s been on a high-speed growth upswing. Last month, YouTube became the 4th most visited site on the web after it beat out Microsoft’s Live.com and MSN, with 85.1 million U.S. visitors.
That number may not truly reflect the viewership of the web’s most popular video website, though. According to some astounding numbers from comScore, online video is surging as 8.9 billion videos were viewed by 120.3 million U.S. citizens in July. That’s over 1/3 of the entire U.S. population. Just as astounding is that over 21 billion videos were viewed on the Internet according to the new numbers.
YouTube Domination
comScore’s video matrix broke down the total number of unique viewers and the total number of videos viewed in the U.S. during July across the top 10-12 websites. Here are the unique viewers for online video in July:
Google sites were the clear winner in online video, with 120.8 million unique viewers. According to comScore, 120.3 million of those viewers were for YouTube.com What may be more shocking is the average number of video per viewer: 134.9. That’s nearly 5 YouTube videos per day. A lot of this can be attributed to embeds, which may not be reflected as unique traffic on YouTube.com
Facebook, which is not thought of as a video powerhouse, makes this list as well with 20.5 million video viewers. That’s a very small fraction of its 250+ million registered users. If Facebook can really begin to leverage its userbase, it could shoot up the rankings.
Now here are the comScore numbers for total video views:
Again, no surprise that Google dominates with a 41.9% video share. Viacom-owned videos (i.e. Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon) were a surprising second in terms of video streams. According to all of these numbers, Hulu’s still a smaller player in the online video space. Its growth has halted as there are few new TV shows during the summer season to watch.
The numbers are actually significantly different than Nielsen’s numbers for July, just showing how tough it is to track these metrics. However, online video is clearly surging and that trend will continue with YouTube as its reigning king.
Reviews: Google, Hulu, YouTube, facebook
Tags: ComScore, ONLINE VIDEO, video, youtube
The Tampa Bay Chapter of the Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA) in conjunction with Computer Mentors Group Inc, (CMG) and Lives Under Construction (LUC) is planning its first youth charity awards breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel, Saturday, September 12, 2009. The event, to support the training and motivation of underprivileged Tampa Bay youth in computer technology, entrepreneurship and health and fitness, will include a surprise appearance by a Tampa Bay Bucs player. The former NFL running back will give a personal account of his struggles as a child growing up in a single parent household and how faith, discipline and perseverance launched his 12-year NFL career.
We’ve seen Twitter used for everything from marriage proposals to tweeting the diaries of dead presidents. However, the new endeavor by the famous Kennedy family is definitely breaking new ground.
Yesterday, the Kennedy family launched a Twitter account: @KennedyNews. It is “the official account of the Kennedy family and staff.” Instead of discussing politics though, the family is using it to keep the public informed about memorial and funeral activities for the late Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who passed away two days ago after a year-long struggle with brain cancer.
The account is already very active, tweeting out not only news about the family, but information about the motorcade, the time and location of sitting vigils, and even who is currently paying his or her respects to the late Senator. Here are a few example tweets:
It’s another extraordinary use of social media to keep an interested public informed. Twitter has quickly become the broadcast tool of choice, and for good reason. There will surely be a lot more vigils, testimonials, and information to come out as the funeral arrangements are made. Be sure to follow the account if you’re interested in more from the storied family.
Reviews: Twitter
Tags: Ted Kennedy, twitter, U.S. Senate
Our story about a dual-screen laptop from gScreen raised an amazing amount of interest amongst our readers; it might seem like an over-the-top gimmick, but then again, who doesn’t want to double their screen estate, especially if it comes in a compact, easily movable package?
Anyone who follows gadgetry closely, however, will remember that this is not the first dual-screen laptop out there. Far from it; looking back at how other companies envisioned this concept, we’ve found three other dual-screen laptops with a very different take on the idea. Which one would you like to own the most? Let us know in the comments!
The mighty W700ds a bit clumsy compared to the gScreen’s offering, and the smaller, 10.6 inch screen seems rather puny in comparison, but it has one definitive advantage: it’s already available. It costs an arm and a leg, though.
It started out as a project for the military, but Estari now claims it’ll “revolutionize the world of personal computing.” If you ask us, it depends on whether typing on this thing feels like torture; if it doesn’t, it may just have a chance at being successful. Expect a price around $4,350 when it ships, which should be “soon.”
Asus Dual Screen Laptop Concept
Displayed at the CeBit 2009 show in Germany, Asus’ idea of a dual screen laptop is similar to Estari’s: just replace the keyboard with another screen. The device looks elegant and slim, but it’s as far from production as it gets; when the company behind it, Asus, refers to it as one “of the ideas they discussed,” don’t expect to see it on the market soon.
Tags: Asus, dual-screen laptops, estari, gscreen, lenovo
Over the last few months everyone has weighed in on the question of “Why Don’t Teens Tweet” — except, it would appear, teens. We recently ran a survey of 10,000+ US teens aged 13 – 17 to see if we could add anything new to the question. As it turns out, the question itself is flawed.
To date, reasons given for the alleged aversion of teens to Twitter have ranged from the condescending “Because they have nothing to say,” to the responsible “Because it doesn’t feel safe,” to the Letterman-like “Because they can’t afford it” — at least without a mobile data plan.
Of course, all of these reasons are predicated on the widely accepted notion that “Teens Don’t Tweet” — that there is a phenomenon that needs to be explained. As recently as last week even, the New York Times cited the fact that only 11% of Twitter is teen as evidence of Twitter’s unpopularity to that group.
