If someone is an internet user, there’s a decent chance they are reading the newspaper online. According to comScore, 644 million people worldwide visited online newspaper sites this October, which it estimates to be 42.6% of the world’s internet users. As their business models continue to tilt away from print and toward digital, newspaper outlets around the world are competing to win the attention of this large and growing audience.The leader, by sheer size of audience, may be a surprise to hard-news junkies: the Mail Online, the web outlet of the London-based Daily Mail. The Mail Online’s website attracted over 50 million unique visitors in October, comScore said, the most of any online newspaper. Despite a partial paywall instituted in 2011, websites affiliated with The New York Times ranked second, attracting over 48 million unique visitors, followed by two other well-established outlets, The Guardian and Tribune newspapers.

via The World’s Most-Read Online Newspaper Changes the Rules – eMarketer.

I’ve written often about the benefits of going viral in both content and marketing strategies. Increasingly, however, social media content a.k.a. viral content does more than increase brand recognition and site traffic: it can also boost your SEO signals.As search engines pay more and more attention to social signals, going viral is rapidly becoming one of the best ways to build links, attract attention, and establish authority and legitimacy in your field.How Social & SEO Are LinkedLet’s start with the obvious: social media builds links. In fact, viral content serves the same purpose as a link building campaign: gathering endorsements that establish authority and legitimacy in your field.

via Types of Social Media Content to Boost SEO.

Great news! Facebook now lets people you don’t know spam your inbox for the low, low price of $1. For those of us who work in media, this can only mean one thing:

via What Facebook’s $1 Messages Mean for Journalists.

Forrester Research just published its annual “State of Consumers and Technology” report. As usual, it’s chock-full of interesting statistics about how U.S. consumers use the Internet, but the most interesting statistic is probably that the overall online penetration rate in the U.S. has stabilized at 79 percent (the same number Forrester found in 2011). That’s the percentage of U.S. adults that go online at least monthly. What has changed, however, is how many adults go online at least daily: In 2011, that was 78 percent of U.S. adults, and in 2012, Forrester reports that 84 percent now go online at least once per day.

via Forrester: 84% Of U.S. Adults Now Use The Web Daily, 50% Own Smartphones, Tablet Ownership Doubled To 19% In 2012 | TechCrunch.

People are spending more time accessing the internet from a variety of non-PC connected devices, finds GfK in a new report. While desktop and laptop computers accounted for 83% of total time spent online last year, that dropped by 10% points to 73% this year. Picking up the slack were mobile devices: mobile phones now account for 17% of time spent with the internet (up 42% from 12%), and tablets 6% (double last year’s 3%).

via Mobile Phones Now Account for 17% of Total Time Spent With the Internet.

People are spending more time accessing the internet from a variety of non-PC connected devices, finds GfK in a new report. While desktop and laptop computers accounted for 83% of total time spent online last year, that dropped by 10% points to 73% this year. Picking up the slack were mobile devices: mobile phones now account for 17% of time spent with the internet (up 42% from 12%), and tablets 6% (double last year’s 3%).

via Mobile Phones Now Account for 17% of Total Time Spent With the Internet.

The global data supply reached 2.8 zettabytes (ZB) in 2012 – or 2.8 trillion GB – but just 0.5% of this is used for analysis, according to the Digital Universe Study.

Volumes of data are projected to reach 40ZB by 2020, or 5.25 GB per person, with emerging economies accounting for an increasingly large proportion of the world’s total.

The report also contained a warning on data security, with levels of protection shown to be lagging behind the expansion in volume. In 2012 less than a fifth of the world’s data was protected, despite 35% requiring such measures.

via Study: less than 1% of the world’s data is analysed, over 80% is unprotected | News | guardian.co.uk.

Dealing with “Big Data” is a challenge for many marketers, but its rise in importance is pushing more and more to use it. According to research from IBM and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford, the main objective for companies worldwide is to use the data to achieve customer-centric outcomes.

Nearly half of IT and business professionals reported that as their primary goal for Big Data this year. That was more than twice the number who cited operational optimization, with other objectives even farther behind.

via Companies Focus on Customers When Harnessing ‘Big Data’ – eMarketer.

Travel marketers are flocking to develop mobile solutions as more and more of their customers carry around smartphones and tablets. The travel business is highly focused on mobile bookings, but research shows that many consumers are still not ready to make large travel purchases via mobile devices.

via Mobile Travel Bookings Catch On at Destination Level – eMarketer.

Mobile social media use in France began to heat up in spring 2012 during the country’s presidential race. As politicians sought to gain advantages, especially on microblogs, they drew in more constituents, ultimately spurring greater social use on these newer platforms.Social networks in France have since taken advantage of this increased mobile engagement, with Twitter and LinkedIn especially making significant strides. Between June 2011 and 2012, Twitter saw a 117% bump in mobile access in the country, according to data from comScore MobiLens. LinkedIn made an even bigger leap of 125% during the year.

via In France, Strong Mobile Push by LinkedIn, Twitter – eMarketer.