LA Times has confirmed that Merchants are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other online outlets to connect with customers, build relationships and save money. The social sites also enable businesses to announce events, sales and specials promotions. Best of all, merchants can get instant feedback from their patrons.

However, merchants must be careful not to overload their followers or friends with constant messages. Facebook’s internal settings, however, make tracking page views less of an exact science than on a typical website. Users can view a page without becoming a friend, and the page’s owner is never the wiser.

The numbers of the merchant’s friends or followers, and links to her or his page, has can point to some measure of importance. Companies are finding inventive ways to market themselves using the Internet’s social networks and YouTube. One- to three-minute videos are useful marketing tools that show and enhance the benefits of products and services.

Founded in February 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social web by the digital mapping of people’s real-world social connections. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a part of millions of people’s lives all around the world. Facebook is a privately-held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. Commercial uses and applications such as these are some of the reasons that explain the extraordinary growth for Facebook in recent years.

The new meaning for civets countries

Civets are small, fast-moving, mostly arboreal mammals that live in the tropics of Africa and Asia.  The word Civets Countries is now used for referring to a group of six countries that are in the fast lane for growth and progress in the near future: Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa.

After the dynamic growth of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the last decade, a batch of six new countries the – CIVETS COUNTRIES — will be the ones to watch in the next 10 years. These midsize economic powers — Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey, and South -Africa — are hailed as the new stars of the emerging markets, the civets countries.

Here is the link to the complete PEW Report (pdf). The PEW report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on America´s use of the Internet, with data from telephone interviews to a sample of 2,252 adults ages 18 and older. This gives a 95% confidence level.

]]> http://internetstatstoday.com/?feed=rss2&p=1411 0 http://internetstatstoday.com/?p=1393 http://internetstatstoday.com/?p=1393#comments Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:35:21 +0000 Editor http://internetstatstoday.com/?p=1393 The Influence Project is designed to answer a simple question: Who are the most influential people online right now?

According to the Fast Company, influence is not only about having the most friends or followers. Real influence is about being able to affect the behavior of those you interact with, to get others in your social network to act on a suggestion or recommendation. When you post a link or recommend a site, how many people actually bother to check it out? And what’s the likelihood of those people then forwarding it on? How far does your influence spread?

Your truly (Enrique De Argaez) was invited to take part in the Influence Project and he would really appreciate you vote for him. Thanks!

Currently the estimated number of Internet users in Colombia is 21,529,415 for December 31, 2009, according to Internet World Stats.

Mexico alone, has 30,600,000 million internet users, according to AMIPSI, the Mexican Internet Association.

About 75 percent of all Internet users visited a social network or blog in April 2010, and they spent 22 percent of their online time – more than 110 billion minutes – on those sites. That’s more than twice the number of minutes Nielsen recorded a year earlier. The average person spent 5 hours, 51 minutes on these sites in April, compared to 3 hours, 31 minutes per person during the previous April, according to Nielsen.

Facebook was the main driver of this trend. Since early 2009, the Palo Alto company has increased membership from fewer than 200 million to nearly 500 million. In April website rankings, Google, which reached 82 percent of online users, was  first, while a combined MSN, WindowsLive and Bing drew 62 percent of the audience. Facebook was the third most popular online brand, with 54 percent of all Internet users visiting the site. Yahoo was fourth at 53 percent, according to Nielsen.

Of special attention is the fact that while the average user spent 1 hour, 21 minutes on Google during April, Facebook users were logged on an average of 6 hours.

Specifically, the first four IDN to be approved are:

Regarding India, domain names will be available in seven Indian languages and the Department of Information Technology of India (DIT) has plans of extending it to all the countrys’ 22 official languages. In the past, IDNs were available only in Latin Characters which is the script in which English and most other European languages are written. Only 10 per cent of the total Indian population knows English, according to the DIT, and only English speaking population can currently access the Internet. This is one of the reasons of India’s low Internet penetration. Availability of regional language domain names will not only help the masses in sharing information but will also help in Internet proliferation in remote corners of India.

China Internet usage will also benefit greatly with the Internationalized Domain Names.

Here is a video about the new IDN: