Before we look at the statistics, it’s as well to look at this locally first. A report from O2 in the UK came up with some fairly interesting numbers on the daily interaction of smartphones users and their devices. Actually, there was another article related to that suggesting the “smart” phone as a word is not redundant and that we should really replace it with “phone” – I’d also advocate that we give “Ahoy” another shot as the introductory greeting! Let’s first take a look at the smartphone landscape in Ireland, or rather the estimates. ComReg keeps a track of

It’s another stat attack – but the information might be useful. Comscore release their monthly internet statistics today and its interesting reading when compared to the same month last year.According to their data, where were an estimated 1.48 billion unique visitors to the internet in May, up marginally on the previous year. On average, they spent 24.5 hours on the internet in that month again up marginally on last year.In our own fair land, there were 2.4m unique visitors to the internet in May 2012 which was up substantially on the previous year, up by some 14% or an extra

On the subject of spam – here’s an interesting one. You can do plenty with the Google search bar other than your “normal search”. You can use search operators to get a different look at websites.  Here’s one you can do that’s fairly interesting. In the search bar key in the following Site:mysite.com But substitute ‘mysite.com’ for your own website. This then shows you web pages that Google has indexed. Now, if you are a keyword rich site (ecomm perhaps) you can go further, using the site operator again search for a keyword  (red widget in this example) Site:mysite.com  red

European Internet Statistics for February by Comscore show that Ireland still trails in terms of our internet penetration. Naturally the figures are based on sheer numbers, but even when compared to individual populations we are still laggards in European terms.   Actually, when compared to the same month last year, our usage has declined, as have many countries across Europe. A figure that leaps off the screen is Italy, who has increased its internet usage by 15% in the past 12 months. If the penetration is static, the hours are not increasing marginally over the year. 2012 2012 2011 2011 (000)

    Country Visitors (000)  (%) Rank  Ave Hours per Visitor Rank Ave Pages per Visitor Rank2 World-Wide 1,444,092 24.4 13 2,354 13 Europe 381,546 27.5 5 2,935 5 Russian Federation 53,345 38% 17 25.1 11 2,792 7 Germany 51,008 62% 8 25.2 10 2,885 6 France 43,009 66% 5 27.5 5 2,786 8 United Kingdom 37,504 60% 9 35.6 1 3,297 2 Italy 24,468 40% 16 17.7 19 1,900 19 Turkey 23,369 32% 18 33.7 2 3,974 1 Spain 21,600 47% 14 26.9 8 2,321 14 Poland 18,194 48% 13 27.8 4 3,156 4 Netherlands 11,997 72% 1 32.2

Yet another interesting summary on the state of the Net for Comscore and the penetration of the internet across various different countries in Europe. It’s not really a precise science to look at the numbers in isolation, as the relative populations have to be taken into account. Looking just at visitors The Netherlands has the highest internet penetration of any of the countries under scrutiny at 72%. Ireland lies #12 with a 535 penetration. If we were to allow to merge this figure with another from Social Bakers it renders an interesting statistic. The latter suggest that there are 2.089m

Group Deal Sites and SEO Site Coupons Daily Deals Deals of the Day Deals of the Week Discount Coupon Group Deals Voucher www.5hop5.ie – 2 – – – – 22 www.boardsdeals.ie – 15 13 – – – – www.bonkers.ie – 6 – – – – – www.citydeal.ie – – – – – – – www.clicknsave.ie – – – – 1 – – www.couponmaster.ie – – – – – – – www.crazydeals.ie – – – – – – – www.dailydealsireland.com – – – – – – – www.dealrush.ie – – – – – – – www.dealsireland.ie – – – – –

There have been some very interesting studies conducted recently into the world of the ‘Daily Deal’ and coupon redemption. Perhaps one of the more interesting of these was conducted by Rice University in September of last year and again in June of this year. But…. if you’ve been tempted, have a look at something we cooked up, a daily deal calcutator  Their research findings are a fantastic guide to any business tempted by the lure of a daily deal. Whilst many of the business running these deals are very satisfied with the outcome, many are not. There are some parts

In an effort to try and bring some reality as opposed to hype Daily Deals, we’ve put together an interactive spreadsheet sheet to try and help you get to the bottom of the numbers. There are so many variables it can really be a bit of a nightmare. But hopefully below will at least give you an indication of how a potential promotion might do. There are a few items that you can fill in with certain levels of confidence and others that are very much picked out of the ether. One those, it’s best to try and err on

Taco Bell, the Mexican/American fast food chain, recently got itself into a spot of PR bother. A customer took offence to the amount of beef contained in her beloved Taco and so offended was she that she took a class action suit against Taco Bell – as you do. The law hired firm came out blazing and claimed that the mixture was only a paltry 35% beef, the rest was “other ingredients”. The people at Taco Bell (I’m at pains not to use the initials of “TB” as I think they have suffered enough in the publicity department) were not

Some very interesting Facebook statistics are available at Social Bakers. So we put a few of these together here, just to give you an idea of what’s happening on Facebook as we write. Firstly we will look at Facebook penetration worldwide. There’s really two ways to look at this; absolute numbers or penetration as a % of the population. In numbers, the United States is, naturally, way ahead of the rest of the field with over 150 million Facebook users or the equivalent to half of its population. Ireland’s figure is always going to be low in comparison and we

Here’s a interesting take on the recent Google Panda update – specifically on Google.com. Below is the before and after of an Irish website whichwas competing for a fairly competitive key phrase. Before the update we had tracked it in and around 10th# and it had been relatively stable over that months up to that give or take a position or two. The landing page for that keyphrase on that particular site was, well, a bit light and really didn’t live up to the promise. After the “update” they currently reside in 75th#. That has to hurt.