In just one year, visits to Facebook increased 185% whereas, Google had only increased 9% in the same time period. Director of Media Relations at Hitwise, Matt Tatham, tells us “It shows content sharing has become a huge driving force online.” Unlike the uncertainty of searching blindly, “People want information from friends they trust, versus the anonymity of a search engine.”

The margin may be slight, but it’s a huge accomplishment in socializing the web. According to CNN Money, “Facebook had never before beaten Google over a full weeklong period.” Facebook claimed 7.07% of all US visits, Google held second at 7.03% and Yahoo Mail ranked in third with 3.8% of all US visits. Yahoo came in fourth with 3.67% — not really sure why they separated Yahoo and Yahoo Mail though…

Now, back to the present… Website Monitoring found a few more interesting statistics in regards to Facebook’s overwhelming popularity on the web.

• More than 400 million active users
• More than 60 million status updates posted each day
• More than 3 billion photos uploaded each month
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes on Facebook a day
• Average user has 130 friends
• Average user writes 25 comments a month

Facebook history, top 10 countries on Facebook, top 10 Facebook pages and more statistics at the Website Monitoring Blog. Yes, I’ll admit it — and also a bit ashamed to say — I am part of the 50 percent of active users logging on to Facebook in any given day. But, by being one of those users, I also feel a couple degrees closer to Kevin Bacon (is he even on Facebook?)…

TechCrunch recently published a few interesting stats for users on Chatroulette. By using data from Chatroulette Map, “some scrappy programming, and a passionate tech community” from just under 3,000 sessions, TechCrunch found some (possibly not surprising) statistics. A few highlights below (or read the full analysis from TechCrunch).

• Half of the spins will connect you with someone in the US…
• They also found 89% of the spins came up male, and only 11% were female
• The chances of getting a webcam with no person at all are more likely than one with a single female
• 1 in 3 females appear as part of a group, whereas only 1 in 12 males appear as part of a group

Michael, one of our IT guys, praised to me how entertaining Chatroulette could be and suggested we have the staff try it out. He took the initiative, found us a webcam-loaded laptop and set it up. After witnessing a few sessions on Chatroulette with the brave souls at SoftwareMedia.com, I can’t say that Michael was wrong nor that TechCrunch’s Chatroulette stats were far off at all.

Brandon (Warehouse) — “It’s interesting. It’d be way funny with people dressed as super heroes.”
Brandon was up first and got passed off a lot after many weird looks. Oh, did I mention we dressed a mannequin to stand next to him? After a majority of male encounters, he noted “I’d do it again, if it wasn’t just people looking for chicks.”

Jeremy (Sales) and Ashley (Accounting) — “This is amazing!” “When it works!”
Our wi-fi connection on the laptop gave us a few connection problems. Michael fixed it by plugging in the Ethernet cable. Remember that TechCrunch finding? How girls are four times likely to appear in a group? Well, Ashley told us she’d only volunteer “if I have somebody with me,” most likely because she doesn’t “appreciate the half naked men” the two encountered — 1 in 8 spins bring up a R-rating or worse according to TechCrunch. But Jeremy loved it so much, he was going to start it again right when he got back to his desk.

Dustin (Development) — “Awkward.”
Dustin lucked out and got to chat up a gal from Denmark. He did tell me, “I prefer to talk to girls.” And I bet the 89% majority of male Chatroulette users prefer to talk to girls as well… He probably had the most pleasant experience, although it would be less “awkward with less people running around” — people as in co-workers looking for ways to harass him later. Ha.

Billy (Sales) — “Freaky people! It’s weird just seeing someone there.”
It was going well in the beginning… but as Billy chatted it up, he incidentally encountered a spin that was beyond a R-rating. Sorry Billy! That immediately ended his first session of Chatroulette but he hinted at the possibility of giving it another go, “cause I’m so intrigued.”

Casey (Development ) — “Way too much…”
Pressured by a couple of nameless co-workers, Casey gave it a go and enjoyed a very entertaining session. Would he do it again? “No, I want to keep my marriage.”

Curious for more stats? In addition to TechCrunch, Comscore also did an analysis.

A couple of eye-brow raising stats came out recently. The Society for New Communications Research released a study regarding journalists and their use of social media. It’s no shock that the study revealed the “use of social media tools by journalists is surging, growing in double-digit percentages in some cases.” But, as ZDNet points out… there’s interesting insight to how many of the 341 journalists surveyed are not taking advantage of social media sites.

• Over 50% of journalists do not watch videos online
• Approximately one-third of the journalists surveyed do not read blogs
• 75% don’t listen to podcasts
• More than half of the journalists do not use Twitter or other microblogging sites and tools
• Nearly one-third of these journalists don’t use social networking sites

But hey, 91% of journalists surveyed agree that new media is enhancing journalism. I wouldn’t be able to get away with not using social media and blogs at work. Then again, I wonder what percentage of these journalists are online journalists… hmm…

Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project stirred a few stats up for a Reuter’s article. According to the survey, 56% of Americans believe it’s “irresponsible” to be Facebook friends with your boss. More so, 62% of those surveyed said it’s wrong befriend an employee.  Other intriguing highlights:

• 52% believe it’s appropriate for companies to review the social media profiles of job candidates
• 73% don’t think it’s appropriate to update your Facebook status while at work; 72% say you shouldn’t tweet at work
• More than 40% of parents believe you shouldn’t post photos of children online
• Although just under 70% of parents are friends with their kids on Facebook or MySpace, 31% of them monitor their children’s Facebook accounts
• 72% of parents limit the time their kids spend on social media networks
• More than 80% of parents say teachers shouldn’t interact with students online

Do SND readers agree with the lot above? These findings come as sort of a surprise to me, I’ll admit. Not too long ago, I befriended my 8th grade teacher after my friend told me she was online. And I’m definitely friends with past employers… Okay, so maybe it’s different since 8th grade was a long time ago. And perhaps it depends on the relationship you’ve developed with an employer. For me, Facebook is a networking and contact tool where I’m usually eager to befriend employers and co-workers. Does that mean the cheese stands alone? Uh, I mean, do I stand alone on this? Share your thoughts!

Last year, Kathleen Richards at East Bay Express wrote an article about how several businesses in the Bay Area were contacted by Yelp. John, a restaurant owner in the Bay, was contacted about negative reviews that were featured prominently on his Yelp site. “We can move them,” said the Yelp sales rep. Then came, “Well, for $299 a month.” Ha! What?! Although the article mentions this issue is addressed in the Yelp FAQ, there are a number a local business owners that challenge the statement. Yelp denies the statements addressed in Richards’ article though. The Wall Street Journal did an article on these events.

These recent allegations stem from a veterinary hospital in Long Beach, California who asked that Yelp remove a false defamatory review from the website. In response, Yelp refused to take down the review. Instead, Yelp sales reps repeatedly contacted the hospital to demand roughly $300/month in exchange for hiding or removing the review. Yelp plans to “dispute it aggressively” according to their response to TechCrunch.

The case, styled Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital Inc. v. Yelp Inc. was filed yesterday and is pending in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

My friend Brian hits up Yelp like a junkie; he loves using the site. In fact, I’ve caught him (and poked fun at him for) reviewing a restaurant on Yelp immediately after he came home from dinner. He also refers to Yelp for practically any new dining and shopping option (I prefer the old fashioned method of phoning friends). And did you hear the one about the infuriated bookstore owner? For those reasons, I can see the power that Yelp has on local businesses. Whether or not I believe the stories, I guess we’ll have to see what unfolds in court… Comments? Thoughts? Please share them with us!

An email sent to the media before the attacks declared, “No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be ‘unwanted’.” The email also announced, “No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason.”

Publicized by flyers distributed to recruit participants as “Operation: Titstorm,” the attacks caused intermittent periods of downtime before lunch in addition to about an hour of inaccessibility in the morning. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy frowned upon the attacks, saying they were “totally irresponsible and potentially deny services to the Australian public.” The Sydney Morning Herald has more coverage on the events that occurred last night (well, Wednesday morning Australia time and Tuesday evening through the US).

Dumped
A man in Winnipeg is on a campaign for his innocence after being dumped by his girlfriend of 2.5 years. Apparently, his girlfriend found brow-raising text messages on his work phone — “Booty call” and “Be there soon” type texts. But Darren, the dumped, didn’t even know that he had text capabilities on his Samsung Virgin Mobile phone; they were preloaded messages! Mike Ford, a sales associate at Future Shop, a cell phone store, in Winnipeg tells the Huffington Post, “when we looked at a couple of the same phones he bought, and found they all had the same messages… We all felt horrible.” Well, Darren is on a quest, “I’d like to see the phones recalled and the messages taken off, so that others don’t have to go through the hell I’m going through.” Can he win his girl back?

Censored
YouTube now comes in “Safety Mode.” What is it you ask? Well, let’s go to the source. The YouTube Blog tells us, “Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site.” Maybe this video demo will help…

Since you must manually opt in to enable Safety Mode, it may not be the best way to keep tabs on your teenager. But it still creates a nice alternative to avoid unsightful, salacious or  embarrassing content while browsing YouTube… at work, let’s say… or at home with the kids… Aside from creating a more family-friendly browsing experience, Safety Mode also hides comments and allows you to filter out curse words. YouTube tells us, “while no filter is 100% accurate, we use community flagging, hide objectionable comments and porn image detection to identify and hide inappropriate content.”

In less than a day, Google Buzz has already taken on several hits. And I sort of agree with Microsoft, “Busy people don’t want another social network…” Actually, sometimes I’m not even that busy… so maybe it should’ve been, “Lazy and busy people don’t want another social network”?

However, I did stumble upon something fairly awesome from Google today… Mountain Street View! To ready up before the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, Google’s Street View team sent a souped up snowmobile into the mountains of Vancouver and Whistler.

The snowmobile was fitted with “cameras to capture slope-level imagery of several runs on Whistler Blackcomb Mountains” amongst other areas.

A new website will incorporate the new imagery captured from the Street View Snowmobile — competition venues and aerial views. Google even has a special Picasa Web Albums gallery for the Games.

Street Views have already expanded across Canada, as well as Norway and Finland. But, why not keep mapping out those mountains? Hey, if Google is thinking about Store View, why not a Mountain View? SoftwareMedia loves going up to the powder-y white mountains nearby, so I’m sure we’d love to see it mapped out around us!

10. Obama stimulates IT
An avid techie, Obama creates stimulus packages to adopt various IT practices. Embrace change.

9. Bing
Cashback shopping, flashy and colorful interface for search – Powerhouses Microsoft and Yahoo team together to bring a new search. Bing ups the ante and brings a better competition to Google search.

8.Tablet computers and netbooks
My mom has one. Apple seems to be in the works towards creating one. They are the must-have accessory for the modern, swanky professional on the go, I’d say. They are just going to get more popular.

7. Windows 7 blows Windows Vista out of the water
Windows XP users finally have a reason to upgrade their systems.

6. iPhones are given a bit more competition with the Droid
I once heard a rumor that Verizon was originally approached to offer the iPhone. Were they waiting for the Droid all along? They’ve certainly put on a fierce campaign with the new Motorola phone. For weeks, I had thought it was an upcoming blockbuster film. Here’s one of the many commercials.

5. Bill Gates retires
Okay, so technically he stepped away from the reigns in 2008, but I honestly had no idea until just a couple of weeks ago. So it’s news to me in 2009! Ha, I know. I know.

4. Social media explosion
Although Twitter started back in 2006, more celebrities and other users jumped on board causing social media to explode and almost become a necessity in the workplace. Was this blog a result? Hm…

3. Google announces it’s own operating system: Chromium OS
I’m telling you! Google is going to dominate the world. It’s just a matter of time.

2. Switch to digital television
It was pushed back a bit, but it eventually happened this summer. I can’t decide if I like it or hate it. As someone without cable TV, it’s been easier to pick up better signals with the transition. But, as someone without cable TV and DVR, I can’t really utilize my VCR to record missed shows anymore. I suppose that’s why there’s Hulu…

1. The Birth of SoftwareNewsDaily.com
This article would not exist otherwise. This has to be the most important tech news of the year! Muwahahaha.

Nuance has released another mobile application for iPhone, Dragon Search. Powered by their popular Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, the app lets you search the web just by saying the words. It’s the “fast, easy, and smart way to search online content on your iPhone using your voice,” declares Nuance. Voice your search and receive results from engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, Twitter and iTunes. Their top five reasons for getting it?

• Most convenient way to search on your iPhone
• Amazingly accurate
• Up to five times faster than typing
• Easy to use
• Safer and more productive while you are out and about

And the best reason that’s not mentioned? It’s a free download (at least for now). Download either Dragon Dictation or Dragon Search at the Dragon Mobile Apps site; it’s also available through iTunes.

The reasoning behind such censorship? Communications Minister Stephen Conroy says, “The Government believes that parents want assistance to reduce the risk of children being exposed to such material.” Conroy also believes that some internet content is just not appropriate for civilized society.

There’s still democracy at play though. An independent body, not the Australian Government, will determine what sites will be blacklisted (or in Australian, “rated RC for refused classification“). I suppose that is enough time before the papers and legalities are pushed through Parliament next year… then another 12 months before implementation.

Legislation will require all internet service providers to filter these sites.

Australia is definitely not the first to implement internet censorship. The Associated Press mentions how “countries such as Egypt and Iran impose strict Internet controls, and bloggers have been imprisoned.” AP also mention voluntary filters in Canada, Sweden and Britain. And through three weeks of frustrating, restrictive browsing while vacationing in China, I know from personal experience that China implements filters as well.

Experienced by a trial conducted earlier this year, Conroy has hopes for success. “Our pilot, and the experience of ISPs in many western democracies, shows that ISP level-filtering of a defined list of URLs can be delivered with 100 percent accuracy,” he says. He also proclaims the “negligible impact on internet speed.” Then again, Conroy admits “the government has always maintained there is no silver bullet solution to cyber-safety.”

NoCleanFeed.com pushes for action against Conroy’s filtering. “We can bring about a policy change,” the site announces. Australian Comedian Chas Licciardello (@ChasLicc) asks his followers, “After the [government] censors the Internet, how will we be able to describe the acts that should be done to Conroy?” Other Twitterers are also replying in farce, many via a #nocleanfeed tag.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s reader poll has readers overwhelmingly against Conroy’s filter. Over 90% of its readers believes that the policy violates their freedom.

Would this ever happen in the United States? AP did mention that Pennsylvania briefly tried to impose certain filters for child pornography sites, but a federal court took them down. What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you agree with Conroy? Share your opinions with us – hit that comment link!