Facebook hits 222 million visits!

Facebook.com grew a dramatic 127 percent in the past year to 222 million visitors in December, and now ranks as the top social networking site worldwide.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook Inc. is also the seventh most popular Internet property in the world, according to ComScore, which reported that the worldwide Internet audience above the age of 15 crossed 1 billion last month.

The most popular destinations in December Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) sites, with 777.9 million visitors, followed by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT), Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), AOL, Wikimedia, and Ebay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY).

Fox Interactive Media, owner of MySpace, which was surpassed by Facebook in April, came in 10th with 172.8 million visitors. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users at 41 percent, followed by Europe, with 28 percent, North America with 18 percent share, Latin America, with 7 percent, and the Middle East and Africa with 5 percent. China represented the largest online audience, with 180 million Internet users, or almost 18 percent of the total worldwide audience, followed by the U.S. with 16.2 percent, Japan with 6 percent, Germany with 3.7 percent and the U.K. with 3.6 percent.

Academy of Chief Executives Speakers Parade

Speakers parade went really well in Manchester, Monday, I was in good company with Andy Lopata, Networking Guru, Michael Dodd, Media Trainer, Gary Bailey, Ex Goal Keeper now Leadership Speaker and many others. I scored well 8/10 but waiting for confirmation on this. Best of all I have been booked to speak at the Academy Midlands Regional Meeting.

For a list of my keynotes and workshops see www.damonsegal.co.uk

Facebook Lexicon, big brother is so cool

I don't mean the big brother on TV although that is mildly amusing. Facebooks lexicon gives you

Lexicon is a tool to understand what Facebook's users are talking about on Walls.

http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/new/

over 700% increase in Google traffic!

We have just achieved from SEPT to DEC a increase of over 700% in traffic from Google organic listings to one of our clients sites. From 600 visits to about 5500 visits. Infact we have increased the site traffic from 7000 visits total to 18,000 visits in that time period. So all in all a great success!

This was done by restructuring the website and optimising researched keywords into each page of the site.

Voucher sites are cropping up everywhere. If you have a business and want to build a mailing list and enhance brand loyalty these sites are a great distribution hubs to get the word out. If your a consumer then you'll appreciate the credit crunch value: http://www.myvouchercodes.co.uk

IAB Online Adspend Study H1 2008

These are the topline findings from the IAB Online Adspend Study showing details for the first 6 months of 2008. The topline figures were reassuring news, confirming that advertisers are continuing to realise the importance of online advertising to their marketing communications in what has been a difficult marketplace. This tracking study, dating back to 1997, presents the official industry measure and acts as the barometer for the health of the market. Total market size – Jan-June 2008

• Record spend: Online adspend in H1 2008 came in at almost the £1.7 billion mark at £1,682.5m.
• Growth: Spending on internet advertising grew by 21% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis. The advertising industry as a whole declined by -0.7%.
• Market share: Online’s share has grown to 18.7% for H1 2008, up from 14.7% for H1 2007.

Growth in context
• Internet advertising has grown faster than any other mainstream advertising medium.
• The UK advertising market as a whole declined by -0.7% year-on-year – a decrease £65.6m. Online on its own grew by £348.2m.
• All advertising markets experienced decline except for cinema and online.
• Following online’s growth of 21%, Cinema was the next fastest growing medium at 12%.

Advertising formats
The online industry has experienced strong growth across all advertising formats.

• Display: Display advertising accounted for 19.8% of online advertising during H1 2008 with £333.8m spent across all display formats throughout Jan-June 2008.
• Search: Paid-for listings maintained its position as the largest single format with a 58.3% share of the market. £981.0m was spent on search in H1 2008.
• Classifieds: Accounting for 21.5% of the market, classifieds continue their strong growth to £361.6m.
• Solus Email: Still a relatively new category to the IAB Online Adspend Study, with £6.1m being spent by advertisers, accounting for 0.4% of the market.

Source: http://www.iabuk.net