Twitter processed 2.64 billion tweets this August, an increase of 33% over May. Not a bad increase over just a summer. In August, an average of 85 million tweets passed through Twitter every day.

And if you look at the whole year so far, the increase is even more impressive. Activity on Twitter has already more than doubled this year (August had 115% more tweets than January).

See more at royal.pingdom.com

Teens Text 5x More than Adults

Most Adults Send 1-10 Texts Per Day Slightly more than half (51%) of adults who text send one to 10 texts per day, compared to 22% of teens. The percentages of texting adults and teens who send 11-20 and 21-50 average daily texts are fairly similar. Where teens begin to outpace adults is in the percentage who send 51-100 average texts daily (18% to 7%), and more notably in the percentage who send 101-plus average texts daily (29% to 8%). Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

CHART OF THE DAY: 1 In 5 YouTube Users Uploads A Video Each Month

While Google is trying its best to get more professional content on YouTube, the site is still first and foremost about user generated clips.

And while the vast majority of people using YouTube don’t post their own clips, a pretty surprising amount of people do. According to TubeMogul, 1 in 5 YouTube users have uploaded a video to the site in the last month.

See more at www.businessinsider.com

Showing Support Closely Follows Discounts As mentioned above, data from “Facebook X-Factors” shows that the highest percentage of consumers (40%) are motivated to like a brand on Facebook by discounts and promotions. Almost the same percentage (39%) is motivated by showing support for the brand.

See more at www.marketingcharts.com

Spencer Frasher, industry director for higher education at Google, says this time of year searches on Google reveal increased interest for information related to going back to school.

About 72% of college-bound high school seniors found a school’s homepage by searching online, Frasher says. Search terms related to higher education continue to rise 42% year over year, which out pace searches for consumer electronics or automobiles. “You have to fish where the fish are,” he says. “These students are digital natives and if marketers want to communicate with them they need to fit in that mold.” Read more at www.mediapost.com

During the second quarter of the year, the highest-risk inventory was served via ad exchanges. That’s according to a report to be released Wednesday by AdSafe Media, a company that markets proof-of-performance and content safety solutions. A full 16.9% of inventory served by ad exchanges was high risk for advertising, while 6.3% of inventory served via ad networks was high risk, and 3.8% directly via publishers was considered high-risk. What’s more, inventory transparency is the lowest on ad exchanges, which served 64.4% IAB Category I inventory — with full transparency regarding referring URL — while ad networks served 82.6%, and publishers directly served 97.4%. Read more at www.mediapost.com

According to a new poll of brand marketers by Harris Interactive for Buddy Media, 72% of brand managers agree that social media offers great potential to reach existing and potential customers across the globe, but they are lacking tools and information to leverage it successfully.

Major Obstacles in Using Social Media to Reach Local Market Customers

Major Obstacles in Using Social Media to Reach Local Market Customers (% of Brand Managers) Obstacle % of Respondents Agreeing Tracking or measuring success or ROI 48% Managing information 45 Engaging audience 42 Identifying influencers to carry brand message 39 Keeping specific content fresh 32 Posting multimedia content 28 Tracking real time metrics 24 Finding creative for online social marketing 23 Tools to customize content anywhere 22 Source: Buddy Media / Harris Interactive, August 2010 Read more at www.mediapost.com

Online brokerage firm Zecco is one of the participants in Twitter’s Promoted Tweets program – currently in beta – and this morning announced that the ad platform has proven to be very effective for the company to date. The company says it sampled 50 Promoted Tweets over the past two months and measured their effectiveness, seeing a 50% increase in engagement on average as compared to regular messages posted on Zecco’s Twitter account. Some of the tweets, which are centered around financial market commentary and new product offerings, even saw a 200% to 300% increase in engagement, the company adds. Read more at techcrunch.com

eMarketer forecasts that worldwide social network ad spending will rise 31% this year, to $3.3 billion. Next year, spending is expected to increase an additional 29%, to nearly $4.3 billion.

The US accounts for just over half of that total. But in 2011, as outlined in my new report, “Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: A Rising Tide,” US dominance will start to wane and international social network ad spending will increase more rapidly. Read more at www.emarketer.com

The most popular Twitter client going is UberTwitter for BlackBerry, according to a sampling of Twitter’s API done by coder Ed Finkler.

Almost 9% of Tweets sent out each day come from UberTwitter. The next most popular is Tweetdeck at 5%. Twitter for BlackBerry comes in at 4%.

See more at www.businessinsider.com

U.S. adults ages 50 and up who use the Internet are flocking to social networks, according to the results of a survey of 2,252 adults ages 18+ by Princeton Survey Research Associates on behalf of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The survey provides more evidence suggesting social media could become an effective advertising and marketing platform for reaching older Internet users (chronic offense-takers, please note that I did not write “old people”). The Pew findings are pretty dramatic: Among Internet users ages 50+ overall, social network use increased from 22% in April 2009 to 42% in May 2010. To boot, 10% of the 50+ cohort uses Twitter or a similar “status update” service, either to post updates or check other people’s updates. Looking at specific age cohorts, social network use among Internet users ages 50-64 surged from 25% to 47%, with 20% of this group saying they check into social networks on a daily basis — up from 10% last year. Meanwhile the proportion of Internet users ages 65+ using social networks doubled from 13% to 26% over this period, with the number checking in daily jumping from 4% to 13%. By contrast, social network use among Internet users ages 18-29 appears to be reaching saturation, growing from 76% in April 2009 to 86% in May 2010. Read more at www.mediapost.com

The new comScore report, Q2 2010 U.S. retail e-commerce sales estimates, shows that online retail spending reached $32.9 billion for the quarter, up 9% versus year ago. This growth rate represented the third consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth following a year of flat or negative growth rates. Retail E-Commerce (Non-Travel) Growth Rates (Excludes Auctions, Autos and Large Corporate Purchases Total U.S. Home/Work/University Locations) Quarter E-Commerce Spending ($ Millions) Y/Y Percent Change Q1 2007 $27,970 17% Q2 2007 $27,176 23% Q3 2007 $28,441 23% Q4 2007 $39,132 19% Q1 2008 $31,178 11% Q2 2008 $30,581 13% Q3 2008 $30,274 6% Q4 2008 $38,071 -3% Q1 2009 $31,031 0% Q2 2009 $30,169 -1% Q3 2009 $29,552 -2% Q4 2009 $39,045 3% Q1 2010 $33,984 10% Q2 2010 $32,942 9% Source: comScore, Inc. Read more at www.mediapost.com

Many marketers believe that adult women make all the household purchase decisions, and younger women make or break most movies. From the home to Hollywood, however, you can’t discount the influence of 18-34 guys, according to a new report from entertainment portal/ad network Giant Realm. Indeed, nearly three in five — 58.5% — of 18-34 guys say family and friends ask for their opinion on which video games to buy, and a whopping three-quarters — 77% — say they are asked for recommendations on which movies to see. Young men also might be seen as a good source for movie recommendations, given that one-quarter — 24.8% — hit the theaters on opening weekends for movies they want to see. An additional 39.8% say they might go to the premieres if the movie suits them. Read more at www.mediapost.com

According to a study presented at a Pivot Conference (in partnership with Extra Mile Research) entitled “Marketers’ Current and Future Use of Social Media,” 63% of marketers are already investing in social media marketing, and of the 37% that are not currently investing in social media marketing, 62% are planning to invest, including 46% who plan to do so within one year. Other key findings include: 57% welcome social media users involvement and participation with their brands  Of those already investing in social media marketing, 87% plan to increase their expenditures in the next 12 months, including 56% who plan significant increases in spending. Only 30% of marketers who conduct social media marketing have measurement and analysis strategy fully implemented. 43% of marketers who conduct social media marketing have not begun implementing any measurement or analysis programs Of those who have measurement and analysis programs in place, 62% are only “somewhat satisfied” with their programs  Despite all of the focus and investment in social media marketing, only 30% consider their social media marketing efforts “very successful.” 59% rate their efforts as “somewhat successful.” 75% of marketers consider the “always-on” 18-34 year old consumers as a primary or secondary target. Marketers feel that the “always-on” 18-34 year old consumers have unique characteristics: 70% of marketers consider them to have a shorter attention span 67% consider them to have different motivations than previous generations 59% consider them to be less accepting and more questioning of marketing messages in general Read more at www.mediapost.com

Little wonder that marketers find it difficult to stay on top of the hottest social media trends. A May 2010 survey from staffing firm The Creative Group found that 65% of US marketing executives considered it at least somewhat challenging to keep up.

See more at www.emarketer.com

The Associated Press and Google Inc. have reached a new distribution agreement, marking a breakthrough in what has become an increasingly contentious issue for news organizations: how Web portals and other sites distribute their material.

The agreement will allow Google News to host AP articles for at least two more years, people familiar with the matter said. However, the AP backed off certain demands to have more of a say in how prominently its material is featured in search results, the people said.

However, some news organizations say the big Web portals don’t do a good enough job differentiating in search results between the originators of content and other Web publishers that merely repurpose it.

For its part, Google has said its search algorithm is designed and regularly tweaked to favor the most authoritative sources of news, both in searches and on Google News.

See more at www.wallstreetjournal.com

Privacy on the Web is a constant issue for public discussion—and Congress is always considering more regulations on the use of information about people’s habits, interests or preferences on the Internet. Unfortunately, these discussions lead to many misconceptions. Here are 10 of the most important:

1) Privacy is free. Many privacy advocates believe it is a free lunch—that is, consumers can obtain more privacy without giving up anything. Not so. There is a strong trade-off between privacy and information: The more privacy consumers have, the less information is available for use in the economy. Since information helps markets work better, the cost of privacy is less efficient markets.

2) If there are costs of privacy, they are borne by companies. Many who do admit that privacy regulations restricting the use of information about consumers have costs believe they are born entirely by firms. Yet consumers get tremendous benefits from the use of information.

Think of all the free stuff on the Web: newspapers, search engines, stock prices, sports scores, maps and much more. Google alone lists more than 50 free services—all ultimately funded by targeted advertising based on the use of information. If revenues from advertising are reduced or if costs increase, then fewer such services will be provided. Read more at www.wallstreetjournal.com

Mobile phones have become a staple of daily life, so much so that most consumers can hardly imagine going through the day without one by their side. The reliance on mobile devices for just about everything makes mobile a platform that content publishers and marketers cannot afford to ignore.

See more at totalaccess.emarketer.com

For the 2010-2011 broadcast season, Nielsen estimates the total number of TV households in the U.S. will climb to 115.9 million, an increase of one million homes from last year. Nielsen also estimates an increase of more than two million persons age two and older (P2+) in U.S. TV households, for a total of 294,650,000 people.

See more at blog.nielsen.com