Issue no. 399 - 7 June 2009

• Facebook now accounts for one third of all online social networking time (Guardian)
  The latest comScore data is good news for Facebook, ranking the site as the sixth most popular website in the world with 275 million unique users each month. Facebook now accounts for 4.1 minutes of every 100 minutes we spend online. The site accounts for more than 30% of all time spend on social networking sites, up from just over 12% a year earlier. Facebook has seen very strong growth in Europe over the past 12 months, ranked as the most popular social networking site in 11 of the 17 countries comScore monitors.

• JP Only 1 in 3 Japanese teens have installed mobile filters (Filtering Facts)
  Last year, Japan announced a plan to provide filters for mobile devices used by minors. Since April 1, cell phone companies have been obligated to provide filters on cell phones sold to youth under 18 years of age. Though parents are not punishable under the law, they are required to inform cell phone companies if a phone they are purchasing is for use by a child. Only one in every three Tokyo middle school students has activated filters on their cell phones that block access to sites considered harmful to youth, a police survey has found. Among the reasons given by students for not activating the filters, "Because my parents have not told me to" was highest at 42.1 percent. Likewise, the top reason for activating the filters was "Because my parents told me to" at 64.6 percent.

• Study: Young adults haven't warmed up to Twitter (CNET News)
  While 99 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have profiles on social networks, only 22 percent use Twitter, according to a new survey from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network. This is consistent with what some observers have said about Twitter's recent push from early-adopter territory into the mainstream: that it's catching on with a slightly older demographic than the teenagers and college students who formed Facebook's initial core. But of those young people using Twitter, the survey found that 85 percent of them follow friends, 54 percent follow celebrities, 29 percent follow family members, and 29 percent follow companies - not stellar news for the brands and marketers that have flocked to Twitter as the latest "conversational" destination.

• UK - 'Reduction' seen in abuse sites (BBC)
  The number of websites showing and selling images of child abuse has fallen in the last 12 months. The number of sites hosting such images dropped by 10% in 2008, reveal figures from the Internet Watch Foundation. The watchdog warned that the fall in numbers masked a rise in the severity of images seen on the remaining sites. see also Child Porn Websites Domains Concentrated in Ten Registries (Goldstein Report) A small number of registries and registrars are responsible for three-quarters of child porn websites says the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in their annual report. The IWF found 74 per cent of child sexual abuse domains they traced are commercial operations selling indecent images of children with 76 per cent of these (some 850 unique domains) are registered with just ten unnamed domain name registries. Of these, five registries and registrars accounted for 55 per cent of all the commercial child sexual abuse domains known to IWF during 2008.

Issue no. 398 - 13 April 2009

• .eu: three years on, three million domain names (RAPID)
  Three years after its launch, the .eu top-level internet domain continues to be a success story. There are now more than three million internet domains under Europe's own top-level domain. Even the financial crisis has not stopped this growth: the number of .eu domains increased by 2%; during the first quarter of 2009, and .eu was firmly entrenched as the fifth most popular country code top-level domain worldwide. Early last month, Sweden made a symbolic gesture by being the first Member State to adopt ".eu" for its official website dedicated to the Presidency of the European Union that will start on 1 July: www.se2009.eu.

• Children work round web controls (BBC)
  British parents grossly underestimate how much time their children spend on the net, suggests a report. Written by security firm Symantec, it found that UK parents believe their children are online for 18.8 hours per week. The true figure is 43.5 hours.

• EU - Barriers to E-commerce (RAPID)
  A new report on Barriers to E-commerce, presented by EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, shows that online shopping is increasingly popular in the EU, but warns that barriers to cross border trade are holding back its development. The report presents a detailed analysis of current trends in e-commerce across the EU. Between 2006 and 2008 the proportion of EU consumers buying at least one item over the internet increased from 27% to 33%. These average figures mask the huge popularity of online shopping in countries like UK, France and Germany where more than 50% of internet users have made online purchases in the last year. The report warns that numerous obstacles - linguistic, practical and regulatory as well as important trust issues - are holding back the development of online shopping in the EU.

• EU - Young people and emerging digital services (Europa)
  Lusoli, W., & Miltgen, C. (2009). Young People and Emerging Digital Services. An Exploratory Survey on Motivations, Perceptions and Acceptance of Risks (JRC Scientific and Technical Reports EUR 23765 EN). W. Lusoli, R. Compañó & I. Maghiros (Eds.) Sevilla: EC JRC IPTS. This survey has a twofold objective: identifying a) young people's perception of the risks that the new eID technologies may pose and b) young people's acceptance levels of these risks, and their general motivation and intent regarding the use of these new technologies. In summary, the survey should identify the key factors that should encourage or support the development of actual and potential eID-based services, in the views of young European consumers. Statistics_and_research.htm">Statistics_and_research

• Facebook's "In-House Sociologist" Shares Stats on Users' Social Behavior (Inside Facebook)
  The famous Dunbar number, or "theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships", is generally accepted to be about 150. However, in a recent interview with The Economist, Cameron Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook, shared some interesting stats on Facebook users' social behavior patterns. His findings: while many people have hundreds friends on Facebook, they still only actively communicate with a small few. Or to quote the author of the article, "Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever." see also Primates on Facebook (Economist).

• ITU - New ICT Development Index compares 154 countries (Press Release)
  ITU's new ICT Development Index (IDI) compares developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) in 154 countries over a five-year period from 2002 to 2007. The Index combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level. These are related to ICT access, use and skills, such as households with a computer the number of Internet users; and literacy levels. The most advanced countries in ICT are from Northern Europe. The exception is the Republic of Korea. Sweden tops the new ITU ICT Development Index, followed by the Republic of Korea, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway.

• TR - Experts warn parents of threat Internet poses to children (Sunday's Zaman)
  According to a study conducted by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) in August 2008, 24.47 percent of households in Turkey are online. Internet connections are becoming ubiquitous, and a large number of children are using the Internet on a daily basis to browse Web pages, chat, connect to peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and participate in online forums. Parents and teachers encourage children to use computers to prepare them for the future. Some teachers even assign homework that requires students to search for information on the Internet. According to experts, the most widespread threat against children on the Internet is "accessing inappropriate content."

• UK - Cyberbullying affects one in three kids (TechRadar)
  A survey by an anti-bullying charity has discovered that one in three youngsters could have been the victim of cyberbullying. A poll of 2,000 11 to 18-year-olds by BeatBullying discovered an alarming growth in the use of technology like social networking sites and SMS messaging. Girls are four times more likely to be on the receiving end of cyberbullying than boys. The research was released to boost the profile of BeatBullying's CyberMentors campaign, which has been backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

• UK - Twitter growth explodes in a year (BBC)
  New figures just out show that the number of people using Twitter in the UK has gone through the roof over the last year. Market research company Nielsen Online says Twitter grew by 1,689% from February 2008 to February 2009. That means there are now more than 1.78 million people signed on. This time last year the social networking site only had 100,000 members. The same figures, however, show Facebook is still far and away the leading social networking site, with 17.8 million users and steady, strong growth of 114%.

Issue no. 397 - 8 March 2009

• 29% of European Teenagers are victims of online bullying (Microsoft)
  Almost a third (29%) of European teenagers have been bullied on the internet according to new research by Microsoft. The research, which examines the rise in social media and the habits and attitudes of European teenagers, was released today in support of Safer Internet Day and the launch of a new Microsoft volunteering programme designed to educate children, parents and teachers on safe internet use. See also Teens targeted in net safety push(BBC).

• EU - UK parents do most in Europe to protect their children online (EU Kids Online)
  A study released for Safer Internet Day 2009 shows that Britons take more practical action to screen their children from the dangers of the internet than anyone else in the EU. They are most likely to use filtering software (77 per cent) and most likely to talk to their children about what they do online (87 per cent). The survey, conducted for the European Commission and analysed by the EU Kids Online research project at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), shows that British parents still worry about internet safety - with 59 per cent concerned about the dangers of their children seeing sexual or violent content. However in France the highest - the figure is 88 per cent while in Portugal and Greece it is 84 and 81 per cent respectively.

• Facebook's "In-House Sociologist" Shares Stats on Users' Social Behavior (Inside Facebook)
  The famous Dunbar number, or "theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships", is generally accepted to be about 150. However, in a recent interview with The Economist, Cameron Marlow, a research scientist at Facebook, shared some interesting stats on Facebook users' social behavior patterns. His findings: while many people have hundreds friends on Facebook, they still only actively communicate with a small few. Or to quote the author of the article, "Humans may be advertising themselves more efficiently. But they still have the same small circles of intimacy as ever." see also Primates on Facebook (Economist).

• FR - Moins d'un tiers des parents parle systématiquement d'internet avec leur enfant (IPSOS)
  A l'occasion du Safer Internet Day organisé par la Commission Européenne (journée européenne d'encouragement à une utilisation plus sûre et plus responsable d'Internet chez les jeunes) l'association e-Enfance, en partenariat avec l'institut IPSOS, publie la première étude française exhaustive sur l´attitude des parents face à l'utilisation d'Internet, du mobile et des jeux vidéo (enquête réalisée en novembre 2008 sur un échantillon représentatif de la population française auprès des parents d´enfants entre 6 et 18 ans).

• Report: Most Spam Sites Tied to Just 10 Registrars (Washington Post)
  Nearly 83 percent of all Web sites advertised through spam can be traced back to just 10 domain name registrars, according to a study. The data come from millions of junk messages collected over the past year by Knujon ("no junk" spelled backwards and pronounced "new john"), an anti-spam outfit that tries to convince registrars to dismantle spam sites.

• TR - Experts warn parents of threat Internet poses to children (Sunday's Zaman)
  According to a study conducted by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) in August 2008, 24.47 percent of households in Turkey are online. Internet connections are becoming ubiquitous, and a large number of children are using the Internet on a daily basis to browse Web pages, chat, connect to peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and participate in online forums. Parents and teachers encourage children to use computers to prepare them for the future. Some teachers even assign homework that requires students to search for information on the Internet. According to experts, the most widespread threat against children on the Internet is "accessing inappropriate content."

• UK - BBFC: 74% of parents want independent ratings (GamesIndustry.biz)
  The BBFC has published the results of a survey revealing that three quarters of British parents are concerned about the content of videogames and want independent ratings. The survey, conducted by YouGov for the BBFC, revealed that 79 per cent of parents believe that videogames affect children's behaviour, 74 per cent wanted games to be regulated by an independent body, and 82 per cent felt it would be beneficial if videogames used the same ratings as films and DVDs. "This poll clearly shows parents support a regulatory system for games that is independent of the industry and UK based, reflecting UK sensibilities and sensitivities," said David Cooke, director of the BBFC. See also ELSPA: 'PEGI is still the right solution for child safety' (MCV) and Why the BBFC gaming survey is hokum (TechRadar).

• UK - Cyberbullying affects one in three kids (TechRadar)
  A survey by an anti-bullying charity has discovered that one in three youngsters could have been the victim of cyberbullying. A poll of 2,000 11 to 18-year-olds by BeatBullying discovered an alarming growth in the use of technology like social networking sites and SMS messaging. Girls are four times more likely to be on the receiving end of cyberbullying than boys. The research was released to boost the profile of BeatBullying's CyberMentors campaign, which has been backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

• UK - Facebook and MySpace are 'most popular places to find love' (Daily Telegraph)
  Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Friends Reunited have taken over from pubs and nightclubs as the most popular place to find love, it has emerged. One in four British people are dating - or have dated - someone they met through online community websites. And over a third have got back in touch with an old flame through the sites. One in ten have even had gone a step further and had an affair or a one-night stand with someone they met via a social networking site.

• US - Herdict Web - the verdict of the herd (Berkman Center)
  We invite everyone to explore Herdict Web and participate by reporting websites that they cannot access, testing sites that others have reported, or downloading the browser add-on for reporting sites on the fly. Using Herdict Web, anyone anywhere can report websites as accessible or inaccessible. Herdict Web aggregates reports in real time, permitting participants to see if inaccessibility is a shared problem, giving them a better sense of potential reasons for why a site is inaccessible. Trends can be viewed over time, by site and by country. The brainchild of Professor Jonathan Zittrain, Herdict Web builds out from the OpenNet Initiative's research on global Internet filtering. The OpenNet Initiative tests Internet filtering through an academic methodology. Herdict Web takes a different approach, crowdsourcing reports to learn about and display a real-time picture of user experiences around the globe.

Issue no. 396 - 8 February 2009

• DE - Studie: Mobilfunkstrahlung hat keinen Einfluss auf das Wohlbefinden von Kindern und Jugendlichen (Heise)
  Einer Studie der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München zufolge gibt es keinen Zusammenhang zwischen der individuellen Belastung durch Mobilfunkstrahlung und dem Wohlbefinden von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Das Institut und die Poliklinik für Arbeits-, Sozial- und Umweltmedizin der LMU hatte die individuelle Mobilfunkbelastung von rund 3000 Heranwachsenden (1524 Jugendliche zwischen 13 und 17 Jahren, 1498 Kinder zwischen 8 und 12 Jahren) über einen Zeitraum von 24 Stunden per Dosimeter gemessen und parallel dazu ihr Wohlbefinden abgefragt. Die Studienteilnehmer sollten angeben, ob und wie stark sie unter Befindlichkeitsstörungen leiden, wie Kopfschmerzen, Gereiztheit, Nervosität, Schwindel, Müdigkeit, Angst, Konzentrationsproblemen und Einschlafproblemen. Dabei wurde sowohl das aktuelle Befinden am Untersuchungstag als auch das Wohlbefinden der letzten sechs Monate betrachtet.

• FR - 37 % des Français téléphonent au moyen d'une box Internet (01net)
  Le gendarme des télécoms et des Postes, l'Arcep, et le Conseil général des technologies de l'information (CGTI) viennent de rendre publics les résultats 2008 de leur enquête annuelle sur la diffusion des technologies de l'information en France. L'enquête (1) donne des éléments intéressants en matière d'équipement en téléphonie fixe et mobile, de connexion à Internet, etc. Il appert ainsi que 58 % des personnes interrogées se déclaraient connectées à Internet à leur domicile en juin dernier, contre 53 % l'année précédente. Le bas-débit a quasiment disparu de la circulation. L'étude montre également qu'aujourd'hui 37 % des personnes interrogées téléphonent au moyen de leur boîtier de connexion à Internet (ADSL, câble...). C'est 10 points de plus que l'an dernier. Par ailleurs, plus de la moitié des moins de 40 ans téléphonent via un boîtier ADSL.

• Internet Safety Technical Task Force Report (danah boyd)
  A year ago, I teamed up with John Palfrey and Dena Sacco to co-direct the Internet Safety Technical Task Force. Going into this Task Force, I was extremely naïve. I genuinely believed that people were making bad policy, bad technology, and bad decisions because they lacked the data or knowledge to interpret the data. I thought that presenting data would motivate people to innovate and devise solutions to help kids. I was wrong. I'm used to folks dismissing qualitative work because they don't understand it, but I've never before witnessed so many people reject solid quantitative studies done by reputable organizations that are replicated with different sampling techniques across different studies. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect someone to say to me, "Go find other data." See also Challenging Assumptions About Online Predators (Washington Post) .

• Introducing Measurement Lab (Official Google Blog)
  by Vint Cerf and Stephen Stuart. When an Internet application doesn't work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP, the application, your PC, or something else? It can be difficult for experts, let alone average Internet users, to address this sort of question. Last year we asked a small group of academics about ways to advance network research and provide users with tools to test their broadband connections. Today Google, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and academic researchers are taking the wraps off of Measurement Lab (M-Lab), an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools.

• Legal downloads swamped by piracy (BBC)
  Ninety-five per cent of music downloaded online is illegal, a report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has said. The global music trade body said this is its biggest challenge as artists and record companies miss out on payments. There has, however, been a 25% rise since last year with downloads now accounting for a fifth of all recorded music sales. The IFPI said worldwide music market revenues shrank by 7% last year. This was blamed on falling CD sales, while the increase in digital sales failed to make up for this.

• Top 10 'social media sites' (Net Family News)
  TechCrunch looks at the latest available comScore traffic figures for "social networking sites" (including blog-hosting, media-sharing, and pre-social-Web community sites). Google's Blogger - which hosts blogs, of course - is No. 1 (with 222 million unique visitors in November, up 44% from '07). The rest of the top 10 are: Facebook (200 million); MySpace (126 million); Wordpress blogs (114 million); Windows Live Spaces (blogs - down 22% to 87 million this year); Yahoo GeoCities (69 million); Flickr photo-sharing (64 million); Hi5 (No. 1 social site in Latin America - 58 million); Google's Orkut (social-networking site that's huge in Brazil - 46 million); and SixApart (blog-hosting - 46 million).

• UK - Internet generation leave parents behind (Guardian)
  Children are spending increasing amounts of their lives in front of televisions, computers and games consoles, cramming in nearly six hours of screen time a day, according to research. The online activity is building barriers between parents and children, the authors say, with a third of young people insisting they cannot live without their computer. From the age of seven children are building multimedia hubs in their rooms, with games consoles, internet access and MP3 players, which they wake up to in the morning and fall asleep to at night, according to the study of five- to 16-year-olds. Girls in particular are likely to chat online to their friends at night and 38% take a console to bed instead of a book. The latest research from market research agency ChildWise finds children and young teens are more likely to socialise than do homework online. Some 30% say they have a blog and 62% have a profile on a social networking site.

• UK - Ofcom reveals average broadband speed (Ofcom)
  UK consumers receive an average broadband speed of 3.6 megabits per second (Mbit/s), comprehensive new Ofcom research reveals. That's less than the average maximum possible speed of 4.3 Mbit/s across the UK and significantly below advertised headline speeds. Speeds are slowest between 5pm and 6pm on Sundays, when use of the internet is at its highest. But most consumers say they're reasonably happy with their broadband service - although speed is the most commonly cited cause of dissatisfaction.

• US - Youth perspective essential (NetFamilyNews)
  I've been reading social media scholar danah boyd's PhD dissertation, Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics, the result of her 2.5-year enthnograpic study of how teens use social-network sites. The study is unique in a couple of ways: she was like an embedded reporter, not a data cruncher, and she approached her fieldwork very differently than most adults - "with the belief that the practices of teenagers must be understood on their own terms."

Issue no. 395 - 27 December 2008

• Cellphone to be No. 1 access tool: Study (Net Family News)
  By 2020, the mobile phone will be the main tool for connecting to the Internet for most of the world's people, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project's latest "Internet Evolution" study. The study asked a group of 'Internet leaders, activists and analysts' to forecast what they expect to be the major technology advances of the next decade. Two other interesting predictions concerned social tolerance and virtual reality, and the experts polled seem to have felt just as uncertain as the rest of us about what impact connective technology will have on human relations and social tolerance: "The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness." Their prediction about virtual reality lines up with teens' approach to tech for some time: "divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations."

• EU - new Eurobarometer survey: parents' perspective (RAPID)
  A new Eurobarometer survey "Towards a safer use of the Internet for children in the EU - a parents' perspective" has ben published. According to the survey conducted in all EU Member States, 75% of children aged from 6 to 17 years already use the Internet - a trend which continues to grow. Half of the parents who did not use Internet themselves said that their child had online access. At least half of the parents stated that they talk to their children about their online activities. In addition, they take precautionary measures such as not allowing their children to disclose personal information online (92%) or to talk to people they do not know (83%). 59% of parents declared that they use filtering or monitoring software. Parents who do not use filtering tools say they trust their children (64%) or did not know how to access or use them (14%).

• FR - Quels sont les 10 réseaux sociaux français les plus populaires ? (Neteconomie)
  L'institut Médiametrie a dévoilé le classement des 10 principaux sites « communautaires ». Blogs ou réseaux sociaux, ces sites attirent désormais 22,5 des 32 millions d'internautes français pour environ 1 heure et 40 minutes de surf mensuel. Pionnier du genre, Skyrock.com garde sa couronne avec une audience de 8,5 millions de visiteurs uniques et 57 minutes de surf en moyenne. La plate-forme hexagonale est néanmoins talonnée par Facebook qui revendique désormais plus de 8 millions de visiteurs uniques pour un temps passé de près de deux heures par mois (1 heure 55).

• The global Zeitgeist (Google Blog)
  Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience. For the first time, our annual Year-End Zeitgeist features search data from more than 30 countries. Social networks comprised four out of the top 10 global fastest-rising queries, while the U.S. election held everyone's interest around the globe. Republican VP candidate, Sarah Palin, may have lost in the election, but she was the #1 fastest-rising query on our global list (Obama was #6).

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