Digital in 2017: A global overview

Digital in 2017 Global Overview from We Are Social Singapore

Every year We Are Social release their collection of global facts and stats related to digital. It's fabulous.

Some highlights:

• More than half the world now uses a smartphone;
• Almost two-thirds of the world’s population now has a mobile phone;
• More than half of the world’s web traffic now comes from mobile phones;
• More than half of all mobile connections around the world are now ‘broadband’;
• More than one in five of the world’s population shopped online in the past 30 days.

Take a little looky.

Mobile is eating the world...

You just have to find the time to go through this.

All the digital stats you could ever need courtesy of We Are Social...

Digital in 2016 from We Are Social Singapore

The good people of We Are Social have just released their annual Digital report. Is really is an invaluable resource from quite obviously lovely people. Enjoy.

All the digital stats you could ever want... (for now anyway...)

Digital, Social & Mobile in 2015 from We Are Social Singapore

The lovely people at We Are Social have been at it again. This time they have compiled all the stats related to digital you could ever need into one monster slideshow.

The headlines...

You should flick through their blog as it's a brilliant resource for all things digital.

The unconnected are shrinking...

I spent my Sunday morning poring over these slides from Benedict Evans from a presentation called 'Mobile is eating the world'. It's good, go have a look.

My favourite slide is slide number 6... The unconnected are shrinking.

Pretty soon close to 75% of the global population will have a smartphone. Which as it says in the slides is a supercomputer in your pocket. A portable connection to the internet should be a force for good. (Tinder & Candy Crush aside).

The world is shrinking or has shrunk. The internet, globalisation, air-travel and economic migration amongst other things mean that we are no longer defined by our national borders.

More people with smartphones means more people can connect across these borders.

Which means 'local' causes and protests can become international causes and protests in seconds.

Change.org is a classic example of this. In seconds I can support a petition set up on the other side of the world and show my solidarity with people fighting back against corporations and governments who are doing bad things. In a previous world, I'd have to wait for some element of the media to tell me about it. And if they didn't know about it or more likely care about it - it would be unlikely that the many people could ever find out.

In the past few months I've....

Watched a stadium full of people turn their phones around to show they've made a donation to an international charity.

Watched as the protestors in Hong Kong make their smartphones part of the protest.

Watched (on my smartphone) live footage of the police reaction in Ferguson, Missouri to public protest. And then watched as the people of Gaza sent advice on how to deal with tear gas via their smartphones...

There are of course more examples of how mobile and social media have been the catalyst for change and protest, last year in Turkey, the Arab Spring and the whole Occupy movement.

It's all very exciting stuff for someone like me who gets inspired by acts solidarity. 

And inspiring for the day job which in part is to help the charities and campaigning organisations I work with make the most of the opportunity mobile phones offer.

We should connect people and causes all over the world. 

We should live stream the impact of donations to the people who make them. 

We should enable conversation between the people giving and those who are receiving support. 

We should make that conversation drive real change in behaviours everywhere.

The technology is here, its use is growing, so we just need to get on with it.

What's going on in India and why it matters...

We Are Social do great slide deck.

This one is all about India.

Some highlights...

886.3 million active mobile subscriptions or 70% of the population.

70% of web traffic from mobile/tablet.

92 million active social media users via mobile.

Social, Digital & Mobile in India 2014 from We Are Social Singapore

You may wonder why I care..

I care because I believe that globalisation is coming for fundraising.

The rise off mobile use means that fundraising propositions can sit outside of national borders.

No credible reason why the biggest fundraising brands in the UK can't be fundraising outside of the UK.

Lots of reasons why it won't happen quickly. But it can, will and should happen.

EDIT: And as Bernard pointed out on Twitter, there is no reason why charities in other parts of the world can't generate response here.

'We are social' take a look at Europe (great mobile, digital, social stats)...

Social, Digital & Mobile in Europe from We Are Social Singapore

We are social follow up on their great set of global stats with a look at Europe.

Social, Digital & Mobile Worldwide in 2014

A great collection of stats for your viewing pleasure from the fab 'we are social'.

Social, Digital & Mobile Around The World (January 2014) from We Are Social Singapore

MobileMagic: mobile highlights from my reading list...

This weeks highlights from my reading list. No where near as awesome as those Greenpeace climbers...

The smartphone and the customer journey: a Google perspective. With a projections that UK smartphone penetration will be 75% at the end of the year

A fab Deloitte report. 'Beyond the hype: the true potential of Mobile'. Really, really good. 89% of 25 – 34 year olds have a smartphone compared to 72% of those aged 16 – 64.

Does this mean we can put a text call to action in Facebook cover photos now? If it does, shall we get on with it…? 

Mobile checkouts: how user-friendly are the top 10 US retailers? I know I go on about it, but it really is important.

Mobile search spend up 132% year-on-year. Which means you need a mobile optimised site.

I found this report. Help yourself. It’s got some real nuggets in it.

Mobile App Stores, Messaging & Usage Statistics. An infographic all about Apps, how very modern. 

MobileMagic & some non mobile things...

Some more mobile treats that I’ve picked up over the last week and a bit…

Is your online fundraising suffering from FOMO? (Fear Of Missing Out), a great post from Bryan Miller.

Boy Scouts embrace mobile POS to drive fundraising efforts, I’ve seen lots of these in the States. Portable mobile payment methods. Not heard of charities using them here yet.

Bulmers Irish Cider Increases Sales By 73 Percent With MMS messaging, if you can get past the phrase ‘Irish Cider’ this is an interesting case study. This one is organised via O2 More details here. There must be loads of uses for UK Charities. Will find out more…

ABOUT BLOODY TIME >> Twitter Vine app launches on Android after attracting 13m iPhone users. I am on Vine. Here is my lunch. I didn’t eat it all myself…

Here are a collection of Charity Vines. All collated by Kirsty.

And finally, I’ve been updating this Scoop.it for a while now. Loads of mobile & fundraising fings…

Mobile magic. This weeks collection of mobile stories & facts...

I write this in a post IWITOT haze. Wasn’t it fun!

M-PESA The Economist explains: Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money?... in simple terms for us all to understand.

The Rise of the Mobile-Only User from the Harvard Business Review.

Just 13% of people are happy to store credit card details on smartphones….

Sometimes things are just meant to bee that blog post wot I wrote about the Bees…

Get yourself a cup of tea and watch this man calmly state that traditional advertising is dead thanks to mobile. He might have a point. Let’s see shall we… Richard Eyre, IAB UK at Mobile Engage 2013.

I've been collecting mobile facts & stats again...

Last week some of you said you liked this.

A collection of things that the Open Mobile Team circulates to the rest of the agency on a weekly basis. 

Study Shows SMS Use On Smartphones Highest In The Evening. A graph – the Open Mobile team likes graphs. I keep thinking we should make and publish more of our own given how much data we analyse - Like this one that we put on the Open blog a while ago.

Smartphone Adoption Tips Past 50% in Major Markets... First time a report puts UK smartphone penetration at over 50%. I think.

5 tips to creating a better mobile landing page Mostly obvious, but good to remind ourselves. BIG BUTTONS! And Six design tips for making your website senior friendly. 

Wonder if we can convince Twitter to do this for mobile number? Twitter Advertising: Capture user interest with the Lead Generation Card.

This one is a bit sales focussed but worth ploughing through. Permission is KEY to location based mobile services… Top 10 Most Commonly Asked Location Based Mobile Marketing Questions

Report: Smartphones win as the most popular social media device in Australia.. No real surprise there then. But lots of other social media facts as well.

(photo from Elvin)

A 2013 internet trend geek fest from Mary Meeker

I've just spent far too much time looking at this.

A wonderful collection of digital/mobile/social stats pulled together by Mary Meeker. A full 117 slides of statistic fun.

KPCB Internet Trends 2013 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

One of my my favourite stats. Mobile traffic made up 15% of all internet traffic in the whole world in May 2013. And it is obviously only going one way.

The adoption of smartphones in China is extraordinary as is the fact that mobile search surpassed desktop search in South Korea at the end of 2012.

Enjoy comrades.

Mobile facts and things that I've gathered in the last week...

I send an email to my colleagues from time to time highlighting the mobile things that catch my eye...

You might be interested. If you are I might post them here or on the Open blog more often.

SMS open rates are 99%+. That’s just silly. And most are opened within 3 minutes…

Almost Half the Guardian’s Web Traffic is Mobile. Which is a lot. We spoke to a client this week who gets 60% of all traffic via mobile. That is a lot as well.

EE Bringing 4G to Glastonbury; Which in my opinion is the moment ‘Glasto’ died. But a sign of how quickly we will all get used to, then demand 4G.

Foursquare Uses Text Messaging To Increase App Downloads - Foursquare is a funny thing. I unlocked the 'Molto Buono' badge this week. But I go to a lot of Italian restaurants.

11 ways to improve the navigation on your mobile site – my advice. MAKE THE BUTTONS BIGGER.

Any good?

Mobile 2012 review

Mobile in 2012 reviewed. Some great stats and a very American voice over.

Headline stat for me, data usage doubled in 2012 from 2011. That is incredible.

The social media revolution

A totally brilliant video/animation packed full of stats and insights about social media trends and usage.

Updated for 2013.



And I don't even like Fat Boy Slim that much.

Mobile in Africa 2012 & how to tell stories in 2013!

Just under a year ago I blogged about mobile use in Africa as I'd found a great source of information.

The same organisation have updated the information for 2012.



Astonishing.

Mobile phone penetration in Africa is truly astonishing. Amazing for the population there and a lesson in the importance and acceptance of mobile for us here. All from a place that has jumped straight over big screen to the small screen.

So what? Does this mean anything for fundraising?

Well we're constantly searching for an authentic voice. Authentic could be connecting donors in the UK with the communities they are helping across the world via their mobile phone. Pictures, words, videos from the places your money is being spent. Real stories of how it's being used. Real connections with real people and no filtering by HQ. How amazing would that be?

Like this. An example from AJ Leon that I blogged about last October after hearing about the project at IFC 2011.

Pretty soon I hope to be involved in something similar.

We don't talk anymore

Following on from the mGive research published last week in the USA. O2 the UK mobile phone network have just released some research to support the launch of a new handset, it makes really interesting reading.

What really struck me is that it proves beyond doubt that phones aren’t for talking anymore. The research found that making calls is the fifth most popular use of smartphones!

"Smartphone users spend more time browsing the internet (25 minutes a day), social networking (17 minutes a day), playing games (13 minutes a day) and listening to music (16 minutes a day) than they do making calls (12 minutes)."

The research also proves the theory of convergence that I used to hear at every conference I went to a few years ago. i.e consumers want a single device with all the necessary features rather than lugging around multiple devices…

54% use their phone instead of an alarm clock.
46% use their phone instead of wearing a watch.
39% use their phone instead of a dedicated camera.
28% use their phone instead of a laptop.
11% have ditched their games console in favour of their smartphone.
6% use their phone to watch TV.
6% read books on their phone instead of reading an ACTUAL book. (This one disturbs me).

And hold the front page, mobile is here to stay. How do I know this? Well my mum has just taken delivery of her first smartphone.

The 2011 social media story...

A neat video telling the social media story of 2011.

Facebook alone accounts for 10% of all iPhone mobile data!

Another one of those numbers that is only going to go one way. And that's up.

#IFCholland my first day...

I've had a great first day at #IFCholland.


I've met a few people in real life that I've been following on twitter for ages which was brilliant. And went to see @BeateSorum's session on digital fundraising which I found really inspiring.


Inspiring because Beate included four great video's in her presentation.


You've all seen this one before, today it brought a tear to my eye (again).





I hadn't seen this WaterAid advert before - I was laughing at the beginning, by the end I was feeling extremely uncomfortable.  I love this ad. 





And this one, this means a lot to me. I'm honoured to be friends with Stuart Glen, I've never met him but was moved to donate to his son Mackenzie's charity: water page because the passion for the cause was so genuine. 


Then there was this video. The CEO of charity: water sent Mackenzie a personalised thank you video. How cool is that! As Beate pointed out, we should all do a LOT more of this type of thing. It doesn't matter how big you are, you can make the time to do it.





And finally, right at the beginning of her presentation Beate showed us this video - jam packed full of great stats and insight.





Best of all was Beate, she was everything I wanted from the IFC today. Someone who was really passionate about their job, talked about it was loads of enthusiasm and made me smile. A lot. 


If you're on twitter you should follow her. She rocked it.