Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

The Internet, no longer just a series of tubes, continues to expand and attract a broader, more global audience.

Server uptime and performance monitoring service, Pingdom, has pulled together a list of Internet statistics. These are hefty numbers that indicate just where things (or more specifically, the general public) are headed. Some of the more impressive figures that caught our eye include:

• 90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009.
• 81% – The percentage of emails that were spam.
• 1.4 billion – The number of email users worldwide.
• 234 million – The number of websites as of December 2009.
• 47 million – Added websites in 2009.
• 1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009) – An 18% Increase over the previous year.
• Internet users per region: 42.6% Asia (Yup, they’re leading), 24.1% Europe, 14.6% North America, 10.3% Latin America / Caribbean, 3.9% Africa, 3.3% Middle East, 1.2% Oceania / Australia. Imagine that, we’re 3rd!
• 126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
• 27.3 million – Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
• 350 million – People on Facebook.
• 50% – Percentage of Facebook users that log in every day.
• 2.5 billion – Photos uploaded each month to Facebook. – Yuh, Billion!
• 1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day.
• 82% – Percentage of Internet users that view videos online (USA).

Get the report after the jump…

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SoDA 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook – released today!

The Society of Digital Agencies released their 2010 Digital Marketing Outlook today and it’s packed full of great survey data from hundreds of executives from major global brands, traditional and digital agencies, and vendor / service providers. Some key stats and points of view that have caught my eye so far:

• 81% of brand execs expect an increase in digital projects for 2010
• “The most effective digital platforms have shifted from ‘disruptive’ to ‘productive’ by providing a service or utility…[they] fundamentally change the approach from “how we reach our customers” to ‘how we make their lives better.’” K. Blitz
• 59% of respondants say that cost-per-click, conversion, and ROI are the digital marketing metric they’re least interested in
• Most important technical skill sets to hire / contract in 2010 (in order): Flash, ActionScript, CSS, PHP, iPhone SDK – showing that the microsite is indeed still alive and kicking

Get the report after the jump…

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Whenever one of the big tech co’s does something even remotely of interest, and even more often when it’s under the radar, the tech blogs light up with speculation and criticism instantly. Even when it’s as insubstantial as the Microsoft Bing.com team’s recent internal use of their new Binged.It URL shortener.

Microsoft seems far less
concerned with an extra
character in their URL
shortener, or even the
prospect of using a truly
short URL than they are
about building a solid and
recognizable brand around
the Bing product.

The service isn’t yet public, and for all we know, it may never be. But with URL shortening becoming commonplace and creating some interesting business opportunities – tracking audience interest for example – it would be surprising if the Google’s, YouTube’s, and Microsoft’s weren’t exploring the space with some level of interest.

Microsoft’s Binged.It URL shortener caught some heat recently on TechCrunch.com, with the blog and most of the commenters jumping all over the fact that Bing’s short URL (Binged.It – 8 characters) is longer than the service’s main URL (Bing.com – 7 characters). Fair point, considering a URL shortener should, er, shorten a URL, right?!

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The Engine team added some strategic muscle with new hire Lewis Zimmerman who brings to the agency a solid yet diverse skill set covering design, development, and start ups. As he puts it “I’m curious about Art, Technology and Economics. Politically, you’ll find me postmodern.”

Lewis will be filling a new hybrid role, covering both Strategic Planning and Development of interaction and functional applications, both web and mobile, including client work as well as internal platforms that the agency is currently developing for internal use and public release.

Lewis holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance with an elective concentration in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia, where he graduated on the Dean’s List with Honours and a 4.15 GPA. Beyond technical planning and development, Lewis also has a long history with user interface design and user interaction.

Web Apps are fun. Especially when they’re useful. We’ve been working on a few concepts over the past year, and this one has begun to evolve. We’ll be working to jam this out in the new year and when we’re ready to launch we’ll be sure to make some noise. For now though, we’re keeping quiet as to what Chym.In will actually offer. Feel free to post your best guess in our comments below.

In the meantime, please follow Chym.In on Twitter and visit Chym.In to sign up for our launch email. Those signed up to the Chym.In email list and following Chym.In on Twitter will get first invites to the beta.