Social Media Usage by Small Businesses

Social Media is in a very interesting stage of it’s life. Many companies have jumped in. Some are showing great profits, others just see it as a good “brand” play, while others are skeptical just dipping their toes and seeing what happens. It reminds me where SEM and SEO was just 6-7 years ago when businesses would hire interns to figure it out for them. But look where online marketing is now…

Find a Home for Japanese Tsunami Victims

Sparkrelief, a new non-profit that provides disaster relief released a special page where Japanese residence can offer up their homes as temporary shelters for those who affected by the recent Japan earthquake and tsunami. It is a very smart and clever idea worth sharing to the masses…

This just in. Shocking story! A study from Kidscape, a children’s charity, showed that young people feel more comfortable with themselves online than they are offline. 45% of 11-18 year olds said they were happier online.

” [it’s] easier to be who you want to be, because nobody knows you and if you don’t like the situation you can just exit and it is over. ”

Ok. So not really shocking.
Is any of this surprising to you?

This year, social gaming is expected to become a billion dollar market according to an emarketer report. One Billion Dollars.

I’m sure you’ve seen them, maybe on Facebook, “Bob has leveled up to warrior class 3 and found the golden lamp”. You get enough of those, you start wanting to hurt Bob.

Some crazy stats & sarcastic dry humor after the jump.

So what happened in 2010 according to the words and phrases we searched in Google?

This video highlights the various searches and trends that defined 2010. From our economy to unemployment from the Gulf Oil Spill to the Haiti Earthquake, from the Winter Olympics to the World Cup – so much happened in 2010.

Wow. 1.028 Billion Dollars. That’s a lot of money. You would think with the “economic crisis” and the ridiculously high unemployment rate (9%+ for past year), people would spend less. Are we sure our economy is down?

92% of US Toddlers Are Online!

How could this be!
The Internet security firm AVG, recently released a study of 2,200 mothers across the revealed that 81% of children 2 years or younger have some form of online presence! How much has the internet grown that 4 out of 5 kids are online so early on in their life. Online presence could mean anything from an uploaded video of their child, some photos up on the web, or in some cases a full profile on a social networking site.

Read on for some more amazing statistics!

How often do you check your work email?
Every day? Every couple hours? Every hour?

As internet access becomes more available everywhere from cafes to bookstores to the booming smartphone market, checking email has become almost second nature for most individuals.

A recent survey by Harris Interactive conducted in the US and in the UK, showed that for Americans, 72% of the people check work email during non-business hours…

Are You Addicted to the Internet?

The internet is a tool we use in our every day lives. We use it to look up information, we use it to communicate, we use it to socially connect with others, we read the news, play games, and sometimes simply waste hours on end watching youtube videos or reading pointless articles. There is a good chance you used the internet in some form within the last few hours whether to check mail or browse to kill time…

..so are you addicted? See this fun infographic full of statistics.

Youtube Views Per Day Statistics

YouTube has surpassed 2 billion views per day.

Check out this cool little YouTube infographic that summarizes some of the astounding numbers.

24 hours of video uploaded every minute
Average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube
and many more interesting statistics….

Top 10 General Security Tips for Facebook

Facebook is growing at a rapid rate, and now with Facebook open graph, they are looking to “socialize” all the world’s large webpages to be custom to your profile and social network.

So how do we protect our privacy?
[1] The #1 Facebook security tip is to set your Facebook privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Concerns Overblown
There has been a lot of news about Facebook Privacy concerns in news lately. However in my opinion, it’s being overblown by the media because it is a juicy subject to talk and write about. It capitalizes on the new big fear of privacy in the rapidly growing online world. But recent history shows that privacy concerns are short lived. Privacy issues always come up whenever large companies like Google or Facebook launches something new and different (i.e. Google Buzz, Facebook News Feeds etc). Usually the companies …