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Simply put, Facebook had a terrific 2009.  This afternoon, comScore provided some statistics that cover the entire year, and the easiest way to sum them up is by saying that double- or triple-digit growth occurred in an impressive eight out of ten categories.

According to comScore, the total number of unique visitors to Facebook increased 105 percent between December of 2008 and December of 2009, hitting 111.8 million before the new decade began.  At the same time, the number of average daily visitors increased by an even greater amount: 181 percent.

Meanwhile, the total minutes and total pages viewed stats rose 198 and 151 percent, respectively.  Average usage days per visitor hit 10.4 (up 37 percent), average minutes per visitor totaled 246.9 (up 45 percent), and average visits per visitor reached 27.4 (up 64 percent).  And total visits increased 236 percent.

The only sort of weak metrics were the average minutes per visit measurement (down 11 percent, probably due to people visiting the site so often), and the average minutes per usage day tally (up just 6 percent).

So Facebook’s certainly starting 2010 in a much stronger position than it entered 2009.  And looking at the tail end of the line in comScore’s graph, it doesn’t appear that the social network’s stats are going to plateau anytime soon.

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Nielsen, Hitwise, and comScore are all in agreement, so onlookers can perhaps declare it official now: Google had a good December.  comScore, the member of the trio that most recently released its search market data, didn’t put Google up by a whole lot, though, and unlike the other firms, saw Bing gain ground.

Here are the facts related to that first situation: Between November and December, comScore believes that Google’s market share increased from 65.6 percent to 65.7 percent.  Which would be fine, or even good, most months.

But both Nielsen and Hitwise thought Google did better in December (both in terms of month-over-month gains and overall market share), so that’s perhaps not the most positive news for the search giant.

As for Bing’s state of being, comScore stats indicate that the market share of Microsoft’s sites increased from 10.3 percent to 10.7 percent on a month-over-month basis.  Nielsen and Hitwise had it under 10.0 percent and losing share.

Finally, since Google and Bing went up according to comScore, something had to come down, and comScore placed that burden on Yahoo, along with AOL and Ask.  Yahoo’s share of the search market slipped from 17.5 percent to 17.3 percent.

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AdMob, which is in the process of being acquired by Google (regulators are still eyeing the deal), has released its Novemeber Mobile Metrics report. The themes for this one are that the Launch of new devices drove Android growth and the rise of smartphones resulted in a sharp increase in WiFi usage.

"The launch of new Android devices in the second half of 2009 has accelerated the growth of the platform. Six months ago a single Android device, the HTC Dream (G1), generated 92 percent of Android traffic, while in November 2009 the same device accounted for only 37 percent of requests," says AdMob. "The Motorola Droid, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero generated 22 percent, 21 percent and nine percent of Android requests worldwide in November 2009, respectively."

Highlights from the report include:

- 55 percent of ad requests in the US came from devices with WiFi capability, up from only 19 percent a year earlier.

- The iPhone accounted for 71 percent and the iPod touch accounted for 29 percent of total unique users from Apple devices.
 
- Android generated 27 percent of the requests from smartphones in the US in November 2009, up from 20 percent in October 2009.
 
- 88 percent of requests from Android devices came from the US in November 2009, the second largest Android market is the UK with four percent of requests.

The report, which can be viewed here (pdf), examines growth in unique iPhone and iPod touch users since January 2009, finding more rapid growth outside of the US. In November 2009, half of unique users were located outside of the US. This is an increase from 39% at the beginning of the year.
 

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European online Christmas shopping season got off to a strong start this year in the U.K., France and Germany, according to a new report from comScore.

Visits to retail sites were up 18 percent during the first week of November compared to an average week during the prior two months, and increased even more throughout the month to reach a 41 percent growth rate during the week ending November 29.

France saw solid gains, resulting in the same 41 percent growth rate during the last week of November, while Germany showed slight lower growth at 16 percent.

"That we’re seeing such strong growth in visitation to retail sites in three of Europe’s leading countries prior to the December pre-Christmas rush is, hopefully, a positive sign for the overall European economy," said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

"Right now the U.K. and France appear to be demonstrating the highest rate of traffic growth to retail sites, outperforming the U.S. by a considerable margin. While German growth has been slightly slower, the heavy part of the country’s online shopping season should begin in earnest during the first week of December."

During the month of November, average weekly visits to online retail sites grew 35 percent in the U.K. compared to the prior two months. Among the top 5 online retailers as ranked by average weekly visits, Play.com sites experienced the largest growth at 62 percent, closely followed by the Home Retail Group (61%) and Tesco (50%).

Visits to online retail sites in France were up 36 percent during the first week of the month and remained steady during November. Groupe PriceMinister has the fastest growth rate at 188 percent, followed by Amazon and Cdiscount, both at 40 percent.

In Germany, visits to online retail sites got off to a slightly slower start than in France and the U.K., but still showed 17 percent average weekly growth. Amazon was the fastest growing retail site during November, up 46 percent, followed by Neckermann Gruppe (up18%).
 

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According to new data from Experian Hitwise, October was the month of the underdog with respect to the search market.  The two search companies that usually dominate lost a bit of share, while Bing (and to a lesser degree, Ask) gained ground.

Let’s start with the success stories.  Bing’s market share rose from 8.96 percent in September to 9.57 percent in October, which represents an increase of 6.8 percent.  That’s nothing to sneer at, even if Bing remains solidly in third place.

Fourth-place Ask also made a small amount of progress as its share increased from 2.56 percent to 2.62 percent – a jump of 2.3 percent that’s far better than a dip.

Meanwhile, Google came sort of close to losing its grasp on the 70 percent mark, slipping from 71.08 percent to 70.60 percent on a month-to-month basis.  And Yahoo fared about the same, moving from a market share of 16.38 percent to 16.14 percent.

As always, it’s not smart to read too far into a single month’s search report.  Still, Experian Hitwise also recorded a Yahoo loss (and Ask gain) in September, so a trend may be starting to emerge.

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Digital technologies continue to drive a new approach to shopping, with social media and mobile phones becoming key influencers this holiday season, according to a new survey of holiday retail spending and trends by Deloitte.

Social media is gaining traction with 17 percent of consumers planning to use social media during their holiday shopping, and 60 percent plan to use it to find discounts, coupons and sales information, More than half (53%) plans to use social media to research gift ideas, while 52 percent plan to check the gift wish lists of friends and family.

Consumers in all age groups plan to embrace social media over the holidays. While more than half (52%) of those who expect to use social media during the shopping process are in the 18-29 years old age group, 33 percent are in the 30-44 years old age group and 12 percent are in the 45-60 years old age group.

The mobile phone is another digital tool for the holidays that is on track to be used by 19 percent of consumers to help with their holiday shopping. Those consumers plan to find store locations (55%), research prices (45%), find product information (40%), get discounts and coupons (32%) and read reviews (31%). A quarter plan to make a holiday purchase with their phone.

The Internet ranks as a top shopping destination and continues to see steady growth. Nearly a quarter (22%) of consumers indicate they will shop primarily online this year and many are using the Internet to find special offers, with 44 percent of shoppers expecting to use a coupon they get online.

Reviews have become another key online source of information, with 39 percent of consumers indicating they often read consumer-generated reviews of stores or products online, and one-quarter (25 percent) saying they will likely purchase a product this holiday season based on an online recommendation. More than a third (34 percent) say that online consumer reviews and ratings influence their buying decisions more than advertising.

"Consumers are turning to mobile, online and social media during their entire holiday shopping experience," said Stacy Janiak, vice chairman and Deloitte’s U.S. Retail leader. "Retailers should consider harnessing this activity to turn browsers into buyers with one-click access to coupons, promotions and purchasing tools."

"This year’s leaner in-store inventories may also open the door for retailers to lure customers to their online channels where it is easier to access inventory, no matter where it is located."

The Internet is also changing the traditional store-based purchase process. Almost half of consumers (48%) say they like the convenience of shopping with multi-channel retailers, and 78 percent indicate they have purchased an item in a retailer’s store after viewing or researching the product online. In addition 65 percent have done the opposite and purchased an item on retailer’s website after viewing it in the store or catalog.

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Despite all the gains other companies (Google, Facebook) have made, it’s still Microsoft’s world, according to new statistics from comScore.  comScore found that, in terms of time spent on sites, the Redmond-based corporation continues to maintain a huge lead over its competitors.

People spent about 3.920 billion hours on Microsoft’s sites in September, which equates to about 14.5 percent of the total time spent online.  Meanwhile, people only spent about 2.512 hours on Google-owned sites, which works out to 9.3 percent of the total.  And Google barely logged more growth than Microsoft (48 percent versus 44 percent).

Things looked even more depressing for Yahoo, as the chart below shows.  The real surprise, though, relates to Facebook, the social network that doesn’t "do" much of anything compared to three companies that offer search engines, email, maps, and all other sorts of stuff.

comScore determined that individuals spent about 5.1 percent of their online time on Facebook in September, and that represents an impressive 2.9 percent year-over-year increase.  If Facebook can sustain this rate of growth, it might not be long before Yahoo’s forced to eat its dust.

Oddly, Lycos sites experienced a lot of growth in the last year, too, so they may bear watching.

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Sorry, Yahoo fans – September wasn’t kind to your search engine of choice.  According to Compete’s stats about market share and query volume, newcomer Bing did more than all right, though, which would seem to say some interesting things about the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal.

Yahoo’s share dropped from 15.8 percent in August to 14.7 percent in September, which equals a month-over-month fall of 7.0 percent.  Meanwhile, query volume plummeted by a not-at-all-good 8.0 percent.

Bing’s query volume increased by 8.2 percent during the same period.  Its market share eked up, too, from 8.7 percent to 8.8 percent. 

Obviously, Microsoft’s incentive to forge a partnership will shrink if Bing can steal searchers away from Yahoo.  Yahoo might need to hold its own (or at least lose to Google, but not Bing) in order to make sure Microsoft doesn’t think better of the arrangement before the 2010 target date.

As for old Google, it performed well in September and is still far ahead of its rivals, with Compete reporting that its market share increased from 72.3 to 72.6 percent month-over-month.  Only in terms of query volume did the search giant stumble, losing 0.6 percent.

The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) industry continues to stabilize in the third quarter of 2009 and included some positive sings for the fourth quarter, according to a new report from Efficient Frontier.

"The third quarter results and a look beyond provide some encouraging signs for the Search Marketing industry as well as the overall economy," said David Karnstedt, President and CEO, Efficient Frontier.

"While certain sectors, such as travel, have continued to lag, other categories such as retail have picked up as we head into the fourth quarter, which is a critical time for online marketers."

SEM spend was up 5 percent compared to the previous quarter while year-over-year saw a 5 percent decline. Year-over-year (YoY) declines were driven by continued Cost Per Click (CPC) weakness with Google’s search CPC dipping for the fourth straight quarter. Return on investment (ROI) remained stable as marketers continue to focus on efficiency.

While continuing to hold a dominant 70 percent plus share position, Google lost ground in terms of Spend Share both on QoQ basis a YoY basis by losing 1.78 percent and 0.83 percent respectively.

Yahoo’s Paid Click Share was up slightly QoQ, but it lost both Spend and Click Share YoY. Yahoo’ s Spend Share was down 0.07 percent and Click Share was down 2.43 percent YoY.

In contrast, Bing continued to grow since its launch in June. QoQ Bing saw gains in Paid Clicks and Spend Share by 0.68 percent and 1.02 percent, respectively. Bing numbers shows category growth across travel, finance, autos and retails with the most significant gains in travel and finance.

The travel sector saw a 14 percent loss QoQ and 39 percent loss YoY. While the QoQ loss is partly due to the seasonal nature of the travel industry, the YoY loss points to continued weakness in this space.

The finance category has stabilized with positive growth in consumer demand, with a 1 percent decrease QoQ and a 7 percent increase YoY.

Retail is the clear key going in the fourth quarter and the report forecast search will outperform the general holiday season spend.

The company expects strong consumer activity to continue and aggressive advertiser competition to follow as marketers look to capture interest and more importantly, sales. The net result of better conversions, improving ROI, and higher CPCs, will likely be seasonally strong spend increases for the retail sector in Q4 2009. 

More stats regarding Facebook’s astonishing growth rate were released today.  Hitwise puts the social network’s market share of U.S. Internet visits up on a month-over-month basis, way up on a year-over-year basis, and it made significant gains in the "time spent" category, too.

Let’s first look at the market share data.  Hitwise created a custom category of social networking sites, and within it, Facebook’s market share was 58.59 percent in September of this year.  That puts it up by a fair amount over its standing of 55.15 percent in August.

Then, moving further back in time, the 19.94 percent share it controlled in September of 2008 is just tiny by comparison.  Indeed, Facebook pulled off a 194 percent year-over-year increase.

As for the number of minutes Facebook users are spending on the site, Hitwise found that it increased by 23 percent since the same time last year, which is impressive, too.

Meanwhile, Twitter and MySpace weren’t nearly so lucky.  Twitter’s market share has skyrocketed by 1,170 percent year-over-year, but the time spent figure has decreased by a whopping 56 percent.  And MySpace lost ground in both categories, by 55 percent and 12 percent, respectively.